CHAPTER IV FACE TO FACE

Roger de Laval had chosen for his abode in Rome a sombre and frowning building not far from the grim ways of the Campo Marzo, half palace half fortalice, constructed about a huge square tower with massive doors. Like all palace fortresses of the time which might at any moment have to stand a siege, either at the hands of a city mob or at those of some rapacious noble, it contained in its vaulted halls and tower chambers all the requisites for protracted resistance as well as aggression. On the walls between flaunting banners hung the many quartered shields and the dark coats of chain, the tabards of the heralds and the leathern jerkins of the bowmen. On the shelves between the arches stood long rows of hauberks and shining steel caps. Dark tapestries covered the walls and the bright light of the Roman day fell muted through the narrow slits in the sombre masonry which served as windows.

It was not to seek his wife that Roger had come to Rome, and his meeting with Tristan in the gardens of Theodora had been purely accidental. While his vanity and selfishness had received a severe shock in Hellayne's departure, without even a farewell, he had not allowed an incident in itself so trifling to disturb the even tenor of his ways. He had loved to display her at his feasts as one displays some exceeding handsome plaything that gives pleasure to the senses; otherwise he and the countess had no common bond of interest. Hellayne was the only child of one of the most powerful barons of Provence, and had been given in marriage to the older man before she even realized what the bonds implied. Only after meeting Tristan had the awakening come, and youth sought youth.

That which brought every one to Rome in an age when Rome was still by common consent the centre of the universe, such as the Saxon Chronicles of the Millennium pronounce it, had also caused Roger de Laval to seek the Holy Shrines, not in quest of spiritual benefit, but of temporal aggrandizement, in the character of an investiture from the Vicar of Christ himself. His disappointment at finding the head of Christendom a prisoner in his own palace was perhaps only mitigated by the disclosure that he should have to rely upon his own fertility of mind for the realization of a long-fostered ambition.

On one of his visits to the Lateran, hoping to obtain an interview with the Pontiff, he had met Basil as representative of the Roman government, in the absence of Alberic, and a sinister attraction had sprung up between them in the consciousness that each had something to give the other lacked. This bond was even strengthened by Basil's promise to aid the stranger in the attainment of his desires, and at last Roger had confided in Basil the story of the shadow that had spread its gloomy pinions over the castle of Avalon. Basil had listened and suggested that the Lord Laval drown his sorrows at the board of Theodora. Therein the latter had acquiesced, with the result that he met Tristan on that night.

Hellayne was sitting alone by the window in a long silent gallery. She could not take her eyes off the restless outline of the clouds where head on head and face on face continued taking shape. In vain her teased brain tried to see but clouds. Two nights ago had not a horrid face grinned at her from out of these same clouds? The face of a wolf it had seemed. And it had taken human shape and changed to the face of the man who had brought her to this abode from the sanctuary where she had fallen by the shrine.

And yet, as she looked at the sun, whose beams were fast dwindling on the bar of the horizon, how she yearned to keep the light a little longer, if only a few short minutes. She could have cried out to the sun not to leave her so soon, again to wage her lonely war with the Twilight and with Fear. For during the hours of day her lord was away. Business of state he termed what took him from her side. With a leer he left and with a leer he was wont to return. And with him the memory of his meeting with Tristan!

She had found him again, the man she loved! Found him—but how? And Hellayne covered her burning eyes with her white hands.

This other woman who had stepped in between her and Tristan, who had laid a detaining hand upon his arm and had silently challenged her for his possession—what was she to him?

For three days and three nights the thought had tormented her even to the verge of madness. Had she sacrificed everything but to find him she loved in the arms of another? Silently she had borne the taunts of her lord, his insults, his vile insinuations. He did not understand. He never understood. What of it? In the great balance what mattered it after all?

She must see Tristan. She must hear the truth from his own lips. In vain she puzzled her brain how to reach him. She remembered his last outcry of protest. There was a mystery she must solve. Come what might, she was once more the woman who loved. And she was going to claim the payment of love!

As regarded that other, to whom she had bound herself, her conscience had long absolved her of an obligation that had been forced upon her. Had fate and fact not proved the thing impossible? Had fate not cast them again and again into each other's arms and made mock of their conscience? Nature had made them lovers, let it be the will of God or the devil.

And lovers till death should they be henceforth. He belonged to her. Away with faith—away with fear of this world, or the next. Away with all but the dear present, in which the brutality of others had set her free. For a moment her thoughts turned almost pagan.

Was she to return to the old, loveless life in that far corner of the earth, while he whom she loved took up a new existence in the centre of the world, loving another to whose ambition he might owe a great career? She needed indeed to sit in silence, she who had done daring things without a misgiving, as if impelled by a power not her own. She had done them, marvelling at her own courage, at her own faith in him she loved, and she had not faltered.

The torturing dusk was drowning every living thing in pallid waves of shadow. One by one, through the wan gallery in which she was locked, the motley spectres of night would pass in all their horrors, and begin their crazy, soundless nods and becks.

Suddenly she cowered back, shuddering, with her eyes fixed on the darkening depths of the gallery and her day dreams died, like pale ashes crumbling on the hearth.

Roger de Laval had entered and was regarding her with a malignant leer that almost froze the blood in her veins. She knew not what business had taken him abroad. Nevertheless was assured that some dark deed was slumbering in the depths of his soul.

"Are you thinking of your fine lover?" he said as he slowly advanced towards her. "You are grieved to have your thoughts broken into by your husband? No doubt you wish me dead—"

"Spare me this torture, my lord," she entreated. "I have answered a thousand times—"

"Then answer again—"

"I swear before God and the Saints he is guiltless. He knew not I was in Rome."

"Swear what you will! A woman's oath is but a wind upon one's cheek on a warm summer day—gone ere you have felt it. The oath of a woman who has followed her lover—"

"I have not done so!"

"You have done your best to make the world believe it."

"What of yourself?" There was a ring of scorn in her voice.

"You have brought me to shame!"

"What of the women you have shared with me?"

Hellayne's eyes met those of her tormentor.

"It is a man's part!"

"And you are a man!"

"One at least shall have cause to think so."

"Perchance you will have him murdered. Why not kill me, too? That, too, is a man's part."

He gave a great roar.

"And who says that I shall not?"

An icy fear, not for herself, but for Tristan, gripped her heart. She tried to hide it under a mantle of indifference.

"What have you ever done to make yourself beloved?"

"By Beelzebub—you—the runaway mistress of a fop—dares to question me—her rightful lord?"

"Who made the laws that bound me to your keeping? They are man-made, and God knows as little of them as he knows of you. It was your measureless conceit, your boundless egotism, that whispered to you that any woman should feel honored, should deem it the height of glory, to be your wife."

"And is it not?"

She shuddered.

"You never dreamed there might be something in the depths of my soul that cried out for more than the mere comforts and exigencies of existence! Something that craved love, companionship, and, above all, friendship. What have you done to waken this little slumbering voice which died in the shadow of your tremendous egotism?"

He stared at her.

"He has taught you this speech, by God!"

"He has awakened my true self! What was I to you but part of your magnificence, a thing to make your fellows envious—"

He roared. She continued:

"The one decent woman of your life—your world—"

His eyes glared.

"So then, this low-born churl is a better man than I?"

"At least he knew I had a soul of my own."

"Skillfully cultivated to his own sweet ends."

"His ends were innocent, else had he not fled."

"Knowing that you would follow him."

"He knew naught."

"That remains to be seen."

"It was you who brought us together!" she said with quiet scorn. "You were so sure in your pride and your power and of my own timidity that you thought it impossible that something might defy them. And you could not understand that another might be so much closer to my nature, or that I had a nature of my own. In those days I well remember, ere my heart had strayed too far, I tried to waken you to the great danger. I tried to speak of mine. But you would not be apprised of aught that would seem a concession to your pride. So we are come to this!"

Her eyes filled with tears.

"Come to what?" he thundered.

"My ruin—and your disgrace!"

His breast heaved.

"Of you I know nothing. As for myself—I suffer no disgrace. I am too much a man of sense for that. Not a soul but thinks that you are absent with my consent. A pilgrimage to Rome! Many a woman has, for her soul's good gone alone. Not a soul, I warrant, has thought of your connection with that fellow's plight. Not a soul but thinks that this is the sole cause of your disappearance. And when I, too, went I was careful to leave the rumor behind."

He stepped closer, his breath fanning her pale cheeks. She looked almost like a ghost in the grey twilight.

"And now—" he continued, licking his sensuous lips, "you are found—you are found—my beautiful wife—you are found—and—to the eyes of the world at least—unstained. One alone whose lips are sealed, knows."

Hellayne's lips tightened.

"And a woman."

A strange expression came into his face.

"Have you spied upon me, too?"

"You forget the meeting at the Arch."

"No woman will spread the story of a rival's claims!"

There was a pause, then he continued, with deliberate slowness:

"You shall come back with me—my beautiful Hellayne—my wife in name, if not in deed! And you shall submit to my caresses, knowing, as I do, how loathsome they are. And you shall smile—smile—and appear happy—my wife henceforth in name only. And you shall smile no less at what henceforth your lord's pleasure may be with other women—fair as yourself—and you shall grow old and grey, and the thing you call your soul shall die and wither up your beauty—and never a word shall pass your lips anent this chastisement. And at last you shall die—and be laid by—and not a soul shall ever be the wiser for your shame."

Hellayne covered her face with her hands.

"And if I should refuse to accept this fate?"

"Then you shall be flung into a nunnery."

"And if I refuse to become a nun?"

"Then your lover shall pay the price—with his blood instead of yours. Know you the woman he so madly loves?"

"It is a lie!" she shrieked.

There was a moment's silence.

"Her name is Theodora. Saw you ever fairer creature?"

"God!"

"I want your answer!" leered the man.

"I do not refuse!"

An evil smile curved his lips.

"I knew you would be reasonable—my fair Hellayne!"

His lips were parted in a fatuous smile. He pictured to himself the pain at the parting and indeed his satisfaction was so great that he decided to prolong it yet a little longer. How amusing it would be to watch the face of him who had dared to love Hellayne. Knowing as now he did all the motives for his actions, it gave him pleasure to think that he could mar the astonishing good fortune of this adventurer who had found employment in the service of Alberic by the intrusion of this passion for another woman. It would be real joy to see this creature of sentiment thus torn and tortured. And it was yet a greater joy to force Hellayne to witness the struggle, forced to smile at the conquest of her lover by another woman. And he would watch the pangs of their suffering till the day of his departure.

With her own blue eyes Hellayne should witness the love of him she had so madly followed, estranged by the beauty of Theodora, whose lure no mortal might resist.

After he had entered his own chamber, Hellayne flew like a mad thing down the gloom-haunted gallery. Could she but escape from this humiliation—even through death's doors—she would not shrink. She felt, if she remained, she would go mad.

It was true, then! Tristan loved another. The old love had been forgotten and cast aside! All her fears and misgivings returned in one mad whirl.

Frantically she tried to remove the heavy bolt when she was paralyzed by a demoniacal laugh that issued behind her and swooning she fell at the feet of the man whose name she bore.