CHAPTER IX THE CONSPIRACY

It was a night, moonless and starless. Deep silence brooded over the city. Not a ray of light was in the sky. A dense fog hung like a funeral pall over the Seven Hills, and a ceaseless, changeless drizzle was sinking from the heavy clouds whose contours were indistinguishable in the nocturnal gloom. The Tiber hardly moaned within his banks. The city fires hissed and smouldered away under the descending rain, soon to be extinguished altogether.

It was about the second watch of the night when two men, wrapped in dark mantles that covered them from head to foot, quitted the monastery of San Lorenzo and were immediately swallowed up by the darkness.

The night by this time was more dismal than ever. The wind began to rise, and its fitful gusts howled round the stern old walls of the monastery, or rustled in the laurels and cypresses by which it was surrounded. The great gates were shut and barred. Hardly a light was to be seen along the entire range of buildings.

Suddenly a postern gate opened, and what appeared to be a monk, drawing his black cowl completely over his head, came forth and hurried along in the direction of the river.

Tristan and his companion, emerging from their hiding-place, followed at the farthest possible distance which allowed them to retain sight of their quarry. Through a succession of the worst and narrowest by-lanes of the city they tracked him to the Tiber's edge.

Here, dark as it was, a boat was ready for launching. Five or six persons were standing by, who seemed to recognize and address the monk. Keeping in the shadows of the tall, ill-favored houses, the twain contrived to approach near enough to hear somewhat that was said.

"The light over yonder has been burning this half hour," said one of the men.

"I could not come before," said he in the monk's habit. "I was followed by two men. I threw them out, however, before I reached the monastery of San Lorenzo. But—by all the saints—lose no more time! We have lost too much, as it is."

He entered the boat as he spoke. It was pushed out into the water, and in another moment the measured sound of oars came to their ears.

Odo of Cluny turned to his companion.

"Tell me, did he who spoke first and mentioned the light yonder on St. Bartholomew's Island—a light there is yonder, sure enough—did he resemble, think you, one we know?"

"Both in voice and form," replied Tristan.

"My thoughts point the same way as yours!"

"I should know that voice wherever I heard it," Tristan muttered under his breath. "But what of the light?"

Dimly through the mist the red glow was discernible.

"It beams from the deserted monastery," Odo replied after a pause.

"Can we put across?" Tristan queried.

"The question is not so much to find a boat as a landing-place, where we shall not be seen."

"There is a boat lying yonder. If my eyes do not deceive me, the boatman lies asleep on the poop."

"Know you aught of the men who rowed down the river?" Odo turned to the boatman, after he had aroused him.

The latter stared uncomprehendingly into the speaker's face.

"I know of no men. I fell asleep for want of custom. It is a God-forsaken spot," he added, rubbing his eyes. "Who would want a boat on a night like this?"

"We require even such a commodity," Odo replied.

The boatman returned a dull, unresponsive glance and did not move from his improvised couch.

"Take your oars and row us to the Tiber Island," Odo said sternly, "unless you would bring upon yourself the curse of the Church. We have a weighty matter that brooks no delay. And have a care to avoid that other boat which has preceded yours. We must not be seen."

Something in Odo's voice seemed to compel, and soon they were afloat, the boatman bending to his oars. They drifted through the dense mist and soon a dilapidated flight of landing stairs hove in sight, leading up to the deserted monastery.

"Had we chosen the usual landing-place, we should have found two boats moored there—I saw them as we turned." Odo turned to his companion. "Yet we dare not land here. We should be seen from the shore."

Directing their Charon to row his craft higher up, Odo soon discovered the place of which he was in quest. It was a little cove. The rocks which bordered it were slippery with seaweed, and in that misty obscurity offered no very safe footing.

Here the boat was moored, and Odo and his companion clambered slowly, but steadily, over the rocks and, in a few moments, had made good their landing.

Having directed the boatman to await their call in the shadow of the opposite bank, where he might remain unseen, they continued to grope their way upward, till they reached the angles of a wall which converged here, sheltered by a projecting pent house. Voices were heard issuing from within.

"We must have ample security, my lord," said a speaker, whose voice Odo recognized as the voice of Basil. "You require of us to do everything. You exact ties and pledges and hostages, and you offer nothing."

"I am desirous of sparing, as much as may be, the blood of my men," replied the person addressed. "Rome must be my lord's without conflict."

"That may—or may not be," said the first speaker. "But so much you may say to the Lord Ugo. If he expects to reconquer Rome, he will need all the forces he can summon."

"A wiser man than you or I, my lord, has said: 'Never force a foe to stand at bay,'" interposed a third. "Reject our offers, and we, whom you might have for your friends, you will have for your most bitter and determined foes. Accept our terms, and Rome, together with the Emperor's Tomb, is yours!"

"What terms are contained in this paper?" queried Ugo's emissary.

"They are not very difficult to remember!" returned the Grand Chamberlain. "But I might as well repeat them here. First—the revenues of all the churches to flow to the Holy See."

"Proceed."

"Utmost security of life, person and property to those who are aiding our enterprise."

"It is well," said the voice. "So much I can vouch for, my lord. Is that all?"

"All—as far as conditions go," returned the third speaker.

"It is not all, by St. Demetrius," cried Basil. "I claim the office I am holding with all its privileges and appurtenances, to give no account to any one of the past or the future."

"What of the present?" interposed the voice.

"You never could imagine that I perilled my neck only to secure your lord in his former possessions, which he so cowardly abandoned," said Basil contemptuously. "I claim the hand of the Lady Theodora—"

"Theodora?" cried the envoy of Ugo of Tuscany, turning fiercely upon the speaker. "Surely you are mad, my lord, to imagine that the Lord Ugo would peril his reign with the presence of this woman within the same walls that witnessed the regime of her sister—"

"Mind your own business, my lord," interposed Basil. "What the man thinks who fled from Castel San Angelo at the first cry of revolt, the man who slunk away like a thief in the night, is nothing to me. We make the conditions. It is for him to accept or reject them, as he sees fit."

A rasping voice, speaking a villainous jargon, made itself heard at this juncture.

"What of my Saracens, mighty lord?" Hassan Abdullah, for no lesser than the great Mahometan chieftain was the speaker, turned to the Grand Chamberlain. "I, too, am desirous of sparing the blood of my soldiers and, insofar as lies within my power, that of the Nazarenes also. For it is written in the book: Slavery for infidels—but death only for apostates."

"Our compact is sealed beyond recall," Basil made reply.

"Then you will deliver the woman into my hands?"

There was a pause.

"She shall be delivered into the hands of Hassan Abdullah! And he will sail away with his white-plumed bird—the fairest flower of the North—and the ransom of a city."

"Yet I do not know the lady's name," said the Saracen. "This I should know—else how may she heed my call?"

"Those who love her call her Hellayne."

At the name Tristan started so violently that the monk caught his arm in a grip of steel.

"Silence—if you value your life," Odo enjoined.

"When and where is she to be delivered into my hands?" Hassan Abdullah continued.

"The place will be made known to you, my lord," Basil replied, "when the Emperor's Tomb hails its new master."

"Here is an infernal plot," Odo whispered into Tristan's ear, "spawned up by the very Prince of Darkness."

"What can we do?" came back the almost soundless reply. "Hellayne to be delivered over to this infidel dog! Nay, do not restrain me, Father—"

"There are six to two of us," Odo interposed. "Silence! Some one speaks."

It was the voice of the envoy of Ugo of Tuscany.

"Although it seems like a taunt, to fling into the face of my lord the sister of the woman who was the cause of his defeat—"

"His coward soul was the cause of the Lord Ugo's defeat," Basil interposed hotly. "In the dark of night, by means of a rope he let himself down from his lair, to escape the wrath of the fledgling he had struck for an unintentional affront. Did the Lord Ugo even inquire into the fate of the woman who perished miserably in the dungeons of the Emperor's Tomb?"

"Let us not be hasty," interposed another. "The Lord Ugo will listen to reason."

"The conditions are settled," Basil replied. "On the third night from to-night!"

The conspirators rose and, emerging from the ruined refectory, made their way down to their boat.

Soon the sound of oars, becoming fainter and fainter, informed the listeners that the company had departed.

Tristan's face was very white.

"What is to be done?" he turned pathetically to the monk who stood brooding by his side. "I almost wish I had let my fate overtake me—"

"Do not blaspheme," Odo interposed. "Sometimes divine aid is nearest when it seems farthest removed. In three days the blow is to fall! In three days Rome is to be turned over to the infidels who are ravaging our southern coasts, and the Tuscan is once more to hold sway in the Tomb of the former Master of the World. But not he—Basil will rule, for Ugo has his hands full in Ivrea. With Basil Theodora will lord it from yonder castello. He will let the Lord Ugo burn his hands and he will snatch the golden fruit. I will pray that this feeble hand may undo their dark plotting."

"What is Rome to me? What the universe?" Tristan interposed, "if she whom I love better than life is lost to me?"

The monk turned to him laying his hand upon his shoulder.

"You have been miraculously delivered from the very jaws of death. You will save the woman you love from dishonor and shame."

Odo pondered for a pace then he continued:

"There is one in Rome—who is encompassing your destruction. The foul crime in the Lateran of which you were the victim is but another proof of the schemes of the Godless, who have desecrated the churches of Christ for their hellish purposes. We must find their devil's chapel, hidden somewhere beneath the soil of Rome. None shall escape."

"How will you bring this about, Father?" Tristan queried despairingly.

"The soldiers of the Church have not been bribed," Odo replied. "Listen, my son, and do you as I direct. On to-morrow's eve Theodora gives one of her splendid feasts. Go you disguised. Watch—but speak not. Listen—but answer not. Who knows but that you may receive tidings of your lost one? As for myself, I shall seek one whose crimes lie heavily upon him, one who trembles with the fear of death, at whose door he lies—Il Gobbo—the bravo. His master has dealt him a mortal wound to remove the last witness of his crimes. Come to me on the second day at dusk."

Emerging from the shadows of the wall, Tristan hailed the boatman, and a few moments later they were being rowed towards a solitary spot near the base of the Aventine, where they paid and dismissed their Charon and disappeared among the ruins.