CHAPTER IV A LYING ORACLE

It was an eventful night in Rome and, although for that reason well adapted to deeds of violence, the tumult and confusion exacted great caution from those who wished to proceed without interruption along the streets.

A storm had burst as out of a clear sky, and was sweeping in its fury throughout a large portion of the city. Like all similar outbreaks, it gathered force from many sources unconnected with its original course.

Rome was the theatre that night of a furious strife between the great feudal houses which lorded it over the city.

The Leonine city with its protecting walls did not exist until some decades later. Thus, not only hordes of marauding Saracens, but Franks and Teutons used to make occasional inroads to the very gates of the city. On this evening Pandulph of Benevento, having taken umbrage at some decision of the Sacred Consistory regarding the lands he held as fief of the Church, conferring upon him a title which was disputed by Wido of Prænesté, had broken into the city and a bloody and obstinate conflict was being waged between his forces and the soldiers of the Church. The Roman nobles, ever restless and ready to revolt alike from the authority of the Emperor or of the Church, would not let this glorious opportunity pass without reminding those in power that they had built upon a volcano. They joined in the fray, some taking the part of the invader, others of the Church.

An hour or two before sunset an undisciplined horde of mercenaries, armed cap-a-pie, and formidable chiefly for the wild fury with which they seemed inspired, attacked the Mausoleum of the Flavian Emperor. The assailants, having no engines of war either for protection or assault, suffered severely from the missiles showered upon them by the besieged. Being repulsed after repeated assaults, they threw flaming torches into the houses that lined the river on the opposite shore and withdrew. From another quarter of the city a large body of Epirotes, who had hoisted the standard of the Lord Gisulph of Salerno and had already suffered one defeat, which rather roused their animosity than quelled their ardor, were advancing in good order. Before the Lateran they met the forces of Pandulph of Benevento, and a terrible hand-to-hand encounter ensued. Nor was man the only demon on the scene. Unsexed women with bare bosoms, wild eyes and streaming hair, the very outcast of the Roman scum, their feet stained with blood, flew to and fro, stimulating each other to fresh atrocities with wine, caresses and ribald mirth. It was a feast of Death and Sin. She had wreathed her white arms about the spectral king and crowned his fleshless head with her gaudy garlands, wrapped him in a mantle of flame and pressed the blood-red goblet to his lips, maddening him with her shrieks of wild, mocking mirth, the while mailed feet trampled out the lives of their victims on the flagstones of Rome.

Through a town in such a state of turmoil and confusion Tebaldo took it upon himself to conduct in safety the prize he had succeeded in capturing, not, it must be confessed, without many hearty regrets that he had ever embarked on the enterprise.

It was indeed a difficult and perilous task. He had been compelled to dismiss his men long ago, in order not to attract attention. There was but room for himself and one stout slave, beside the charioteer and his captive. The latter had struggled violently and required to be held down by sheer force, nor, in muffling her screams, was it easy to observe the happy medium between silence and suffocation. Also, it was indispensable in the present state of lawlessness to avoid observation, and the spectacle of a golden chariot with a woman prisoner, gagged and veiled, the whole drawn by four spirited black steeds, was not calculated to avoid suspicion and comment. Stefano, Tebaldo's underling, had indeed suggested a litter, but this had been overruled by his comrade on the score of speed, and now the congestion of the streets made speed impossible. To be sure, this enabled his escort to keep up with them at a distance, but a fight at this present moment was little to Tebaldo's taste. The darkness which should have favored him was dispelled by the numerous conflagrations in the various parts of the city, and when the chariot was stopped and forced to run into a by-street, to avoid a crowd running toward the Campo Marzo, Tebaldo felt his heart sink within him in an access of terror such as even he had rarely felt before.

Up one street, down another, avoiding the main thoroughfares, now rendered impassable by the throngs, the charioteer directed his steeds towards Basil's palace on the Pincian Hill.

Hellayne seemed to have either fainted, or resigned herself to her fate, for she had ceased to struggle and cowered on the floor of the chariot, silent and motionless. Tebaldo hoped his difficulties were over, and promised himself never again to be concerned in such an affair. Already he imagined himself safe on his patron's porch, claiming his reward, when his advance was stopped by a pageant, which promised a protracted and hazardous delay.

Winding its slow way along, with all the pomp and splendor attending it, a procession of chariots crossed in front of Tebaldo's steeds, and not a man in Rome would have dared to break in upon the train of Theodora, who was abroad to view the strife of the factions, utterly indifferent to the perils of the venture.

It may be that something whispered to Hellayne that, of the two perils confronting her, what she contemplated was the lesser, and no sooner did the car stop to let the chariots pass, than, tearing away the bandage, she uttered a piercing scream, which brought it to a halt at once, while Tebaldo, trying to wear a bold front, quaked in every limb.

At a signal from the woman in the first chariot her giant Africans seized the shaking Tebaldo and surrounded his chariot. Already a crowd of curious spectators was gathering, and the glare of the bonfires, kindled here and there, shed its light on their dark, eager faces, contrasting strangely with the veiled form of a woman, cold and immobile as marble.

Two of the Africans seized Tebaldo, and buffeted him unceremoniously to within a few paces of the occupant of the chariot. Here he stood, speechless and trembling, anger and fear contending for the mastery, which changed to dismay as the woman raised her veil with a hand gleaming white as ivory.

"Do you know me?"

Whatever he had intended to say, the words died on Tebaldo's lips.

"The Lady Theodora!"

"You still have your wits about you," replied the woman. "Whom have you there?"

The cold sweat stood on the brow of Basil's henchman.

"The runaway mistress of my lord," he said, looking from right to left for some one to prompt him, some escape from the dilemma.

"Who is your master?" Theodora queried curtly.

"The Lord Basil—"

"The Lord Basil!" shrilled Theodora. "Indeed I knew not he had lost a mistress. Yet I saw him within the hour and had speech with him."—

Stefano had meanwhile come up, composed and sedate, little guessing the quality of his companion's interlocutor, with the air of a man confident in the justice of his case.

"Where are you taking this woman?" Theodora queried.

Tebaldo attempted to speak, but Stefano anticipated him.

"To the palace of my Lord Basil on the Pincian Hill, noble lady," he said with many obese bows. "Suffer us to proceed, for the streets are becoming more unsafe every moment and our lord will not be trifled with in matters of this kind."

"Indeed," Theodora interposed. "Is his heart so much set upon this prize? Ho there, Bahram—Yussuff—bring the woman here!"

Tebaldo tried to worm himself out of the clutch of the black giants, in order to prevent them from obeying Theodora's order, but he found the situation hopeless and was about to address Theodora when the latter bade him be silent.—

"The woman shall speak for herself," she said in a tone that suffered no contradiction and, in another moment, Hellayne, lifted by four muscular arms from the chariot of her abductors, stood, released of her bandages, before Theodora.

All color left the Roman's face as she gazed into the pallid and anguished features of the woman whom of all women on earth she feared and hated most, the woman who dared to enter the arena with her for the love of the one man whom she was determined to possess, if the universe should crumble to atoms. Hellayne's fear upon beholding Theodora gave way to her pride as she met the dark eyes of the Roman in which there might have been a gleam of pity or a flash of scorn.

But, ere Hellayne could speak, finding herself, caught like a poor hunted bird, in one net, ere she had well escaped the other, Theodora turned to Tebaldo.

"Tell the Lord Basil, the woman he craves is under Theodora's roof, and—if so he be inclined—he may claim her at my hands—"

The gleaming white arm went out, and ere Hellayne knew what happened, she found herself raised into the second chariot, where sat a tall girl of great beauty, Persephoné, the Circassian.

A signal to the charioteer and the pageant moved with slightly increased speed towards the Aventine, while Tebaldo and Stefano, outwitted and non-plussed, stared after the vanishing procession as if they were encompassed by a nightmare. Then, simultaneously, they broke out into such a chorus of vituperation that the by-standers shrank back from them in horror, and they soon found themselves, their chariot and its driver, almost the only human beings in the now deserted thoroughfare.

Hellayne meanwhile sat, utterly dazed, next to Persephoné. Terrified by the danger she had escaped, and scarcely reassured by the manner of her rescue she seemed as one in a stupor, unable to think, unable to speak.

Persephoné regarded her with a strange fascination, not unmingled with curiosity. Hellayne's fair and wonderful beauty appealed strangely to the Circassian, while, with her native intuition, she wondered whether Theodora's act was prompted by kindness or revenge.

Hellayne seemed, for the first time, to note her companion. Looking into Persephoné's eyes she shuddered.

"Where are we going?" she whispered, gazing about in a state of bewilderment, as the procession slowly wound up the slopes of the Mount of Cloisters, and the broad ribbon of the Tiber gleamed below in the moonlight.

A strange smile curved Persephoné's lips.

"To the Groves of Enchantment," she replied. "You are the guest of the Lady Theodora."

Hellayne brushed back the silken hair from her brow as if she were waking from a troubled dream.

She gave a swift glance to her companion, another to the winding road and, suddenly rising from her seat, started to leap from the chariot.

Ere she could carry out her intent, she was caught in the Circassian's arms.

A silent, but terrible struggle ensued. Notwithstanding her harrowing experiences of the past days, despair had given back to Hellayne the strength of youth. But in the lithe Circassian she found her match and, after a few moments, she sank back exhausted, Persephoné's arms encircling her like coils of steel, while her smiling eyes sank into her own.

The palace of Theodora rose phantom-like from among its environing groves in the moonlight, and the chariots dashed through the portals of the outer court, which closed upon the fantastic procession.