CHAPTER X THE CHALICE OF OBLIVION

A delirium of the senses such as he had never experienced to this hour began to steal over Tristan, as he found himself seated between Theodora, the fairest sorceress that ever triumphed over the frail spirit of man—and Roxana, who was whispering strange words into his bewildered ears.

Across the board the gloomy form of the Grand Chamberlain in his sombre attire loomed up like a shadow of evil in a garden of strangely tinted orchids.

How the time passed on, he could not tell. Peals of laughter resounded now and then through the vaulted dome and voices were raised in clamorous disputations that just sheered off the boundary-line of actual quarrel.

Theodora seemed to pay but little heed to Tristan. Roxana had coiled her white arms about him and, whenever he raised his goblet, their hands touched and a stream of fire coursed through his veins. Only now and then Theodora's drowsy eyes shot forth a fiery gleam from under their heavily fringed lids.

Roxana smiled into her rival's eyes and, raising a goblet of wine to her lips, kissed the brim and gave it to Tristan with an indescribably graceful swaying motion of her whole form that reminded one of a tall white lily, bowing to the breeze.

Tristan seized the cup eagerly, drank from it and returned it and, as their hands touched again, he could hardly restrain himself from giving way to a transport of passion. He was no longer himself. His brain seemed to reel. He felt as if he would plunge into the crater of a seething volcano without heeding the flames.

Even Hellayne's pale image seemed forgotten for the time.

The guests waxed more and more noisy, their merriment more and more boisterous. Many were now very much the worse for their frequent libations, and young Fabio particularly seemed to display a desire to break away from all bonds of prudent reserve.

He lay full length on his silken divan, singing little snatches of song to himself and, pulling the vine-wreath from his tumbled locks, as though he found it too cumbersome, he flung it on the ground amid the other debris of the feast. Then, folding his arms lazily behind his head, he stared straight and fixedly at Theodora, surveying every curve of her body, every slight motion of her head, every faint smile that played upon her lips. She was listening with an air of ill-disguised annoyance to Basil, whose wine-inflamed countenance and passion-distorted features left little to the surmise regarding his state of mind.

On the couch adjoining the one of Fabio of the Cavalli reclined a nobleman from Gades, who, having partaken less lavishly of the wine than the rest of the guests, was engaged in a dispute with the burly stranger from the North, whose temper seemed to have undergone little change for the better for his having filled his paunch.

In the barbarous jargon of tenth century Latin they commented upon Theodora, upon the banquet, upon the guests and upon Rome in general, and the Spaniard expressed surprise that Marozia's sister had failed to revenge Marozia's death, contenting herself to spend her life in the desert wastes of Aventine, among hermits, libertines and fools.

Notwithstanding his besotten mood Fabio had heard and understood every word the stranger uttered. Before he, to whom his words was addressed could make reply, he shouted insolently:

"Ask Theodora why she is content to live in her enchanted groves instead in the Emperor's Tomb, haunted by the spectre of strangled Marozia!"

A terrible silence followed this utterance. The eyes of all present wandered towards the speaker. The Grand Chamberlain ground his teeth. Every vestige of color had faded from his face.

"Are you afraid?" shouted Fabio, raising himself upon his elbows and nodding towards Theodora.

The woman turned her splendid, flashing orbs slowly upon him. A chill, steely glitter leaped from their velvety depths.

"Pray, Fabio, be heedful of your speech," said she with a quiver in her voice, curiously like the suppressed snarl of a tigress. "Most men are fools, like yourself, and by their utterance shall they be judged!"

Fabio broke out into boisterous mirth.

"And Theodora rules with a rod of iron. Even the Lord Basil is but a toy in her hands! Behold him,—yonder."

Basil had arisen, his hand on the hilt of his poniard. Theodora laid her white hand upon his arm.

"Nay—" she said sweetly, "this is a matter for myself to settle."

"A very anchorite," the mocking voice of Fabio rose above the silence.

A young noble of the Cætani tried to quiet him, but in vain:

"The Lord Basil is no monk."

"Wherefore then his midnight meditations in the devil's own chapel yonder, in which our fair Theodora officiates as Priestess of Love?"

"Midnight meditations?" interposed the Spaniard, not knowing that he was treading on dangerous ground.

"Ask Theodora," shouted Fabio, "how many lovers are worshipping at her midnight shrine!"

The silence of utter consternation prevailed. Glances of absolute dismay went round the table, and the stillness was as ominous as the hush before a thunderclap. Fabio, apparently struck by the sudden silence, gazed lazily from out the tumbled cushions, a vacant, besotten smile upon his lips.

"What fools you are!" he shouted thickly. "Did you not hear me? I bade you ask Theodora," and suddenly he sat bolt upright, his face crimsoning as with an access of passion, "why the Lord Basil creeps in and out her palace at midnight like a skulking slave? Ask him why he creeps in disguise through the underground passage. Ay—stranger," he shouted to Tristan, "you are near enough to our lady of Witcheries. Ask her how many lovers have tasted of the chalice of oblivion?"

Another death-like silence ensued.

Even the attendants seemed to move with awed tread among the guests.

Theodora and Roxana had risen almost at the same time, facing each other in a white silence.

Roxana extended her snow-white arms towards Theodora.

"Why do you not reply to your discarded lover?" she taunted her rival. "Shall I reply for him? You have challenged me, and I return your challenge! I am your match in all things, Lady Theodora. In my veins flows the blood of kings—in yours the blood of courtesans. There is not room on earth for both of us. Does not your coward soul quail before the issue?"

Theodora turned to Roxana a face, white as marble, her eyes preternaturally brilliant. "You shall have your wish—even to the death. But—before the dark-winged messenger enfolds you with his sable wings you shall know Theodora as you have never known her—nor ever shall again."

From the woman Theodora turned to the man.

"Fabio," she said in her sweet mock-caressing tone, "I fear you have grown altogether too wise for this world. It were a pity you should linger in so narrow and circumscribed a sphere."

She paused and beckoned to a giant Nubian who stood behind her chair.

"Refill the goblets!"

Her behest executed she clinked goblets with Roxana. An undying hate shone in the eyes of the two women as they raised the crystal goblets to their lips.

Theodora hardly tasted of the purple beverage. Roxana eagerly drained her cup, then she kissed the brim and offered the fragrant goblet to Tristan, as her eyes challenged Theodora anew.

Ere he could raise it to his lips, Theodora dashed the goblet from Tristan's hands and the purple wine dyed the orange colored carpet like dark stains of blood.

White as lightning, her eyes ablaze with hidden fires, her white hands clenched, Roxana straightened herself to her full height, ready to bound at Theodora's throat, to avenge the insult and to settle now and here, woman to woman, the question of supremacy between them, when she reeled as if struck by a thunderbolt. Her hands went to her heart and without a moan she fell, a lifeless heap, upon the floor.

Ere Tristan and the other guests could recover from their consternation, or fathom the import of the terrible scene, a savage scream from the couch upon which Fabio reclined, turned the attention of every one in that direction.

Fabio, suddenly sobered, had risen from his couch and drained his goblet. It rolled upon the carpet from his nerveless grasp. For a moment his arms wildly beat the air, then he reeled and fell prone upon the floor. His staring eyes and his face, livid with purple spots, proclaimed him dead, even ere the Moorish physician could come to his aid.

Theodora clapped her hands, and at the signal four giant Nubians appeared and, taking up the lifeless bodies, disappeared with them in the moonlit garden outside.

The Grand Chamberlain, rising from his seat, informed the guests that a sudden ailment had befallen the woman and the man. They were being removed to receive care and attention.

Though a lingering doubt hovered in the minds of those who had witnessed the scene, some kept silent through fear, others whose brains were befuddled by the fumes of the wine gave utterance to inarticulate sounds, from which the view they took of the matter, was not entirely clear.

The shock had restored to Tristan the lost faculty of speech. For a moment he stared horrified at Theodora. Her impassive calm roused in him a feeling of madness. With an imprecation upon his lips he rushed upon her, his gleaming dagger raised aloft.

But ere he could carry out his intent, Theodora's clear, cold voice smote the silence.

"Disarm him!"

One of the Africans had glided stealthily to his side, and the steel was wrenched from Tristan's grip.

"Be silent,—for your life!" some one whispered into his ear.

Suddenly he grew weak. Theodora's languid eyes met his own, utterly paralyzing his efforts. A smile parted her lips as, without a trace of anger, she kissed the ivory bud of a magnolia and threw it to him.

As one in a trance he caught the flower. Its fragrance seemed to creep into his brain, rob his manhood of its strength. Sinking submissively into his seat he gazed up at her in wondering wistfulness. Was there ever woman so bewilderingly beautiful? A strange enervating ecstasy took him captive, as he permitted his eyes to dwell on the fairness of her face, the ivory pallor of her skin, the supple curves of her form. As one imprisoned in a jungle exhaling poison miasmas loses all control over his faculties, feeling a drowsy lassitude stealing over him, so Tristan gave himself up to the spell that encompassed him, heedless of the memories of the past.

Now Theodora touched a small bell and suddenly the marble floor yawned asunder and the banquet table with all its accessories vanished underground with incredible swiftness. Then the floor closed again. The broad centre space of the hall was now clear of obstruction and the guests roused themselves from their drowsy postures of half-inebriated languor.

Tristan drank in the scene with eager, dazzled eyes and heavily beating heart. Love and hate strangely mingled stole over him more strongly than ever, in the sultry air of this strange summer night, this night of sweet delirium in which all that was most dangerous and erring in his nature waked into his life and mastered his better will.

Outside the water lilies nodded themselves to sleep among their shrouding leaves. Like a sheet of molten gold spread the lake over the spot where Roxana and Fabio had found a common grave.

Surrounding this lake spread a garden, golden with the sleepy radiance of the late moon, and peacefully fair in the dreaminess of drooping foliage, moss-covered turf and star-sprinkled violet sky. In full view, and lighted by the reflected radiance flung out from within, a miniature waterfall tumbled headlong into a rocky recess, covered and overgrown with lotus-lilies and plumy ferns. Here and there golden tents glimmered through the shadows cast by the great magnolia trees, whose half-shut buds wafted balmy odors through the drowsy summer night. The sounds of flutes, of citherns and cymbals floated from distant bosquets, as though elfin shepherds were guarding their fairy flocks in some hidden nook. By degrees the light grew warmer and more mellow in tint till it resembled the deep hues of an autumn sunset, flecked through the emerald haze, in the sunken gardens of Theodora.

Another clash of cymbals, stormily persistent, then the chimes of bells, such as bring tears to the eyes of many a wayfarer, who hears the silvery echoes when far away from home and straightway thinks of his childhood days, those years of purest happiness.

A curious, stifling sensation began to oppress Tristan as he listened to those bells. They reminded him of strange things, things to which he could not give a name, odd suggestions of fair women who were wont to pray for those they loved, and who believed that their prayers would be heard in heaven and would be granted!

With straining eyes he gazed out into the languorous beauty of the garden that spread its emerald glamour around him, and a sob broke from his lips as the peals of the chiming bells, softened by degrees into subdued and tremulous semitones, the clarion clearness of the cymbals again smote the silent air.

Ere Tristan, in his state of bewilderment, could realize what was happening, the great fire globe in the dome was suddenly extinguished and a firm hand imperiously closed on his own, drawing him along, he knew not whither.

He glanced about him. In the semi-darkness he was able to discern the sheen of the lake with its white burden of water lilies, and the dim, branch-shadowed outlines of the moonlit garden. Theodora walked beside him, Theodora, whose lovely face was so perilously near his own, Theodora, upon whose lips hovered a smile of unutterable meaning. His heart beat faster; he strove in vain to imagine what fate was in store for him. He drank in the beauty of the night that spread her star-embroidered splendors about him, he was conscious of the vital youth and passion that throbbed in his veins, endowing him with a keen headstrong rapture which is said to come but once in a lifetime, and which in the excess of its folly will bring endless remorse in its wake.

Suddenly he found himself in an exquisitely adorned pavilion of painted silk, lighted by a lamp of tenderest rose lustre and carpeted with softest amber colored pile. It stood apart from the rest, concealed as it were in a grove of its own, and surrounded by a thicket of orange-trees in full bloom. The fragrance of the white waxen flowers hung heavily upon the air, breathing forth delicate suggestions of languor and sleep. The measured cadence of the waterfall alone broke the deep stillness, and now and then the subdued and plaintive thrill of a nightingale, soothing itself to sleep with its own song in some deep-shadowed copse.

Here, on a couch, such as might have been prepared for Titania, Theodora seated herself, while Tristan stood gazing at her in a sort of mad, fascinated wonderment, and gradually increasing intensity of passion.

The alluring smile and the quick brightening of the eyes, so rare a thing with him who, since he had left Avalon, was used to wear so calm and subdued a mask, changed his aspect in an extraordinary manner. In an instant he seemed more alive, more intensely living, pulsing with the joy of the hour. He felt as if he must let the natural youth in his veins run riot, as Theodora's beauty and the magic of the night began to sting his blood.

Theodora's eyes danced to his. She had marked the symptoms and knew. Her eyes had lost their mocking glitter and swam in a soft languor, that was strangely bewitching. Her lips parted in a faint sigh and a glance like are shot from beneath her black silken lashes.

"Tristan!" she murmured tremulously and waited. Then again: "Tristan!"

He knelt before her, passion sweeping over him like a hurricane, and took her unresisting hands in his.

"Theodora!" he said, bending over her, and his voice, even to his own ears had a strange sound, as if some one else were speaking. "Theodora! What would you have of me? Speak! For my heart aches with a burden of dark memories conjured up by the wizard spell of your eyes!"

She gently drew him down beside her on the couch.

"Foolish dreamer!" she murmured, half mockingly, half tenderly. "Are love and passion so strange a thing that you wonder—as you sit here beside me?"

"Love!" he said. "Is it love indeed?"

He uttered the words as if he spoke to himself, in a hushed, awe-struck tone. But she had heard, and a flash of triumph brightened her beautiful face.

"Ah!" and she dropped her head lower and lower, till the dark perfumed tresses touched his brow. "Then you do love me?"

He started. A dull pang struck his heart, a chill of vague uncertainty and dread. He longed to take her in his arms, forget the past, the present, the future, life and all it held. But suddenly a vague thought oppressed him. There was the sense that he was dishonoring that other love. However unholy it had been, it was yet for him a real and passionate reality of his past life, and he shrank in shame from suppressing it. Would it not have been far nobler to have fought it down as the pilgrim he had meant to be than to drown its memory in a delirium of the senses?

And—was this love indeed for the woman by his side? Was it not mere passion and base desire?

As he remained silent the silken voice of the fairest woman he had ever seen once more sent its thrill through his bewildered brain in the fateful question:

"Do you love me, Tristan?"

Softly, insidiously, she entwined him with her wonderful white arms. Her perfumed breath fanned his cheeks; her dark tresses touched his brow. Her lips were thirstily ajar.

He put his arms about her. Hungrily, passionately, his gaze wandered over her matchless form, from the small feet, encased in golden sandals, to the crowning masses of her dusky hair. His heart beat with loud, impatient thuds, like some wild thing struggling in its cage, but though his lips moved, no utterance came.

Her arms tightened about him.

"You are of the North," she said, "though you have hotter blood in your veins. Now under our yellow sun, and in our hot nights, when the moon hangs like an alabaster lamp in the sky, a beaten shield of gold trembling over our dreams—forget the ice in your blood. Gather the roses while you may! A time will come when their soft petals will have lost their fragrance! I love you—be mine!"

And, bending towards him, she kissed him with moist, hungry lips.

He fevered in her embrace. He kissed her eyes—her hair—her lips—and a strange dizziness stole over him, a delirium in which he was no longer master of himself.

"Can you not be happy, Tristan?" she whispered gently. "Happy as other men when loved as I love you!"

With a cold sinking of the heart he looked into the woman's perfect face. His upturned gaze rested on the glittering serpent heads that crowned the dusky hair, and the words of Fabio of the Cavalli knocked on the gates of his memory.

"Happy as other men when they love—and are deceived," he said, unable to free himself of her entwining arms.

"You shall not be deceived," she returned quickly. "You shall attain that which your heart desires. Your dearest hope shall be fulfilled,—all shall be yours—all—if you will be mine—to-night."

Tristan met her burning gaze, and as he did so the strange dread increased.

"What of the Grand Chamberlain?" he queried. "What of Basil, your lover?"

Her answer came swift and fierce, as the hiss of a snake.

"He shall die—even as Roxana—even as Fabio, he who boasted of my love! You shall be lord of Rome—and I—your wife—"

Her words leaped into his brain with the swift, fiery action of a burning drug. A red mist swam before his eyes.

"Love!" he cried, as one seized with sudden delirium. "What have I to do with love—what have you, Theodora, who make the lives of men your sport, and their torments your mockery? I know no name for the fever that consumes me, when I look upon you—no name for the ravishment that draws me to you in mingled bliss and agony. I would perish, Theodora. Kill me, and I shall pray for you! But love—love—it recalls to my soul a glory I have lost. There can be no love between you and me!"

He spoke wildly, incoherently, scarcely knowing what he said. The woman's arms had fallen from him. He staggered to his feet.

A low laugh broke from her lips, which curved in an evil smile.

"Poor fool!" she said in her low, musical tones, "to cast away that for which hundreds would give their last life's blood. Madman! First to desire, then to spurn. Go! And beware!"

She stood before him in all her white glory and loveliness, one white arm stretched forth, her bosom heaving, her eyes aflame. And Tristan, seized with a sudden fear, fled from the pavilion, down the moonlit path as if pursued by an army of demons.

A man stepped from a thicket of roses, directly into his path. Heedless of everything, of every one, Tristan endeavored to pass him, but the other was equally determined to bar his way.

"So I have found you at last," said the voice, and Tristan, starting as if the ground had opened before him, stared into the face of the stranger at Theodora's board.

"You have found me, my Lord Roger," he said, after recovering from his first surprise. "Here I may injure no one—you, my lord, least of all! Leave me in peace!"

The stranger gave a sardonic laugh.

"That I may perchance, when you have told me the truth—the whole truth!"

"Ask, my lord, and I will answer," Tristan replied.

"Where is the Lady Hellayne?"—

The questioning voice growled like far off thunder.

Tristan recoiled a step, staring into the questioner's face as if he thought he had gone mad.

"The Lady Hellayne?" he stammered, white to the lips and with a dull sinking of the heart. "How am I to know? I have not seen her since I left Avalon—months ago. Is she not with you?"

The Lord Laval's brow was dark as a thunder cloud.

"If she were with me—would I be wasting my time asking you concerning her?" he barked.

"Where is she, then?" Tristan gasped.

"That you shall tell me—or I have forgotten the use of this knife!"

And he laid his hand on the hilt of a long dagger that protruded from his belt.

Tristan's eyes met those of the other.

"My lord, this is unworthy of you! I have never committed a deed I dared not confess—and I despise your threat and your accusation as would the Lady Hellayne, were she here."

Steps were heard approaching from the direction of the pavilion.

"I am a stranger in Rome. Doubtless you are familiar with its ways. Some one is coming. Where shall we meet?"

Tristan pondered.

"At the Arch of the Seven Candles. Every child can point the way. When shall it be?"

"To-morrow,—at the second hour of the night. And take care to speak the truth!"

Ere Tristan could reply the speaker had vanished among the thickets.

For a moment he paused, amazed, bewildered. Roger de Laval in Rome! And Hellayne—where was she? She had left Avalon—had left her consort. Had she entered a convent? Hellayne—where was Hellayne?

Before this dreadful uncertainty all the events of the night vanished as if they had never been.

For a long time Tristan remained where Roger de Laval had left him. The cool air from the lake blew refreshingly on his heated brow. A thousand odors from orange and jessamine floated caressingly about him. The night was very still. There, in the soft sky-gloom, moved the majestic procession of undiscovered worlds. There, low on the horizon, the yellow moon swooned languidly down in a bed of fleecy clouds. The drowsy chirp of a dreaming bird came softly now and again from branch shadowed thickets, and the lilies on the surface of the lake nodded mysteriously to each other, as if they were whispering a secret of another world.

At last the moon sank out of sight and from afar, softened by the distance, the chimes of convent bells from the remote regions of the Aventine were wafted through the flower scented summer night.

END OF BOOK THE SECOND