Under the Witches' Moon 38 – Gallizier · Verses Across
Literature · Historical Fiction
Under the Witches' Moon 38Book the Fourth · The Escape from San Angelo
18
Literature · Historical Fiction
Under the Witches' Moon 38
Book the Fourth · The Escape from San Angelo
GallizierEnglish
Hidden away in some secret vault of the great honey-colored Mausoleum Tristan found himself when the men-at-arms had departed, and he had regained his full senses. Color had faded out of everything. The rock walls were lifeless and grey. The immense silence of the tomb surrounded him. The rayless gloom was without relief, save what sparse light filtered through a narrow grated window so high in the wall that nothing could be seen from below, save the sky.
The torture of it all he could have endured very well. There was something greater. It was the thought of Hellayne. This dreadful uncertainty swung like a bell in his brain, cut through the fibre of his being. And when these thoughts came over him in his lone confinement he beat his hands upon the stone and wept.
They had placed him in a cell, which seemed to have been hollowed out of the Travertine rock. It was small, built in the thickness of the mighty Roman walls. Tristan set his teeth hard, prepared to endure. He knew well enough what it meant. He would be confined in this living tomb till his enemies thought his spirit was broken, and then he would be summoned before a tribunal of the Church.
Once a day, and once only, the door of his cell opened. By the smoky light of a torch, his gaoler pushed a pitcher of water and a machet of bread into his prison. Then the red light died and darkness and silence supervened. Yet it was not the ordinary darkness which men know. Through the haunted chambers of Tristan's mind fantastic forms began to chase each other, evil things to uncoil themselves and raise their heads. More and more drearily the burden of the days began to press upon him. What availed heroic endurance?
But it was not only darkness, nor was it only despair. Nor was it only silence. It was a strange impalpable something which haunted his restless, enforced vigil; a dim inchoate nothingness, that drove him to the verge of madness. Though day draped the sky with blue and golden banners, to tell the sons of men that Night was past and they need not longer fear, for Tristan darkness was not a transient thing, but an awful negation of hope.
All of this Tristan could have endured, had not the thought of Hellayne unnerved him utterly.
She was safe--so he hoped--in the Convent of Santa Maria in Trastevere. But, as hour succeeded hour, his assurance began to pale. Everything had been arranged with the Abbess. But--had she indeed eluded her pursuers? The empty coffin had no doubt long been discovered. Did they believe she was dead, or did the hand who had dealt the blow in the dark, the vigilant eye that had pursued her every step, plot further mischief?
He thought of Odo of Cluny. The monk was influential, but there was, at this hour, in Rome, one even more powerful, and he doubted not but that by his agency the wafer had been placed into his doublet, though the events of that fateful night from the time he had entered the Lateran, were like a black blot upon his memory.
Had Odo even sought admission to his cell? Did he, too, believe him guilty? Had his ears, too, been poisoned by the monstrous lie? To him he might indeed have turned; of him he might have received assurance of Hellayne's fate; and in return he might have reassured her who was pining at the Convent of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
But, was she ignorant indeed of what was happening in the seven-hilled city of Rome? Would not the rumor of the terrible outrage committed at the Lateran knock even at the silent walls of the convent? A captain of the Senator's guard caught red-handed in the perpetration of a crime too heinous for the human mind to conceive!
He reviewed his own life, the close of which seemed very near at hand. Free from cunning and that secret conceit which is peculiarly alarming to natures that know themselves to be, in all practical matters, confounded and confused, he had, in a short time, found himself placed upon the world's greatest stage, a world little fit for dreamers and for dreams. He had been plunged into the inner circles of the mighty struggle, impending between Powers of Light and the Powers of Darkness, upon a sea he knew not how to navigate, and upon whose cliffs his ship had stranded.
One evening, when the cold greyness of an early twilight had enveloped the city, and from the darkening sky every now and then was heard a sound of approaching thunder, Tristan, counting the weary hours of his unbroken solitude, which he could but measure by the appearance and departure of his gaoler, had been more restless than usual. He had hoped to be summoned for early trial before those high in the Church, when, in Odo of Cluny, he would find an advocate, who alone might save him from his doom. But nothing had happened. Nothing had broken the dreary, maddening monotony, save now and then the shriek and curses of a maddened fellow-prisoner, or the moans of a wretch who was dying of thirst or hunger.
Whoever the powers that dominated his life, they evidently had not decreed his immediate death, as if they were rejoicing in the torture of false hopes which each recurrent day waked in his breast, and which each departing day extinguished. The food never varied, and the water intended for the cleansing of his body was so sparse that he had to husband it as a precious possession till the gaoler refilled the bronze ewer on the succeeding day.
When waking from feverish, troubled slumbers, broken by the squeaking of the rats that scurried over the filthy floor of his dungeon, and other presences that caused him to pray for a speedy death from this slow torture, he found himself nevertheless listening for the approach of the gaoler who, after dispensing his bounty, departed as he had come, silent as the tomb, without making reply to Tristan's queries.
Escape, to all appearances, seemed quite beyond the scope of possibility. Yet, with failing hopes, the spirit of Tristan seemed to rise. Had not his good fortune been with him ever since he arrived at Rome? Had he not, by some miraculous decree of destiny, again met the woman he loved better than all the world? And then, they had left him his dagger. After all, not such wretched company in his present plight.
It was on the eve of the third day when the voices of men coming down the night-wrapt passage struck his wakeful ear.
In one of the speakers he recognized Basil.
"And you are quite sure no one saw you enter?" he said to his companion.
"No one!" came the snarling reply. "Nevertheless--they are on my track. I breathe the air of the gibbet which burns my throat."
"And you are positive no one recognized you?" spoke the silken voice.
"No one."
"Take courage, Hormazd. Then there is little danger, yet you should take care that no one may see you. We are surrounded by spies."
"Do you not trust Maraglia?"
"I trust none! You will therefore remain a short time concealed in this subterranean passage."
"Subterranean?"
There was a note of terror in the Oriental's voice.
"That is to say--the vaults! Here you will find honorable and pleasant company, who will not betray you. You will find straw in abundance and each day Maraglia will bring you something to eat. Go slowly. How do you like the abode?"
"Not even the devil can find me here."
"No one will find you here!"
"No one knows where I am," Hormazd interposed dubiously.
"Nor ever shall."
"It is of no consequence. So I am safe."
"You are safe enough. Lower your head and take care not to stumble over the threshold. Here--this side--enter."
"Enter," re-echoed the other. Then there was a pause.
"It is very evident, you are afraid--"
"Afraid? No--but I am thinking we always know when we enter such places--never when we shall leave them."
"How? Did I not say to-morrow night?"
"But if you should not come for me?"
"What profit would your death be to me? Where shall I find another wizard to bring to foretell the death of another Alberic?"
Tristan gave an audible gasp at these words. He felt his limbs grow numb. Had his ears heard aright? Surely they had not. Some demon had mocked him, to drive him mad. Ere he could regain his mental balance, the voice of the Grand Chamberlain's companion again struck his ear.
"But if you should not come, my lord?"
"You could scream!"
"What would that avail?"
"Mind you--I might have to stay here myself for sheltering such a patriarch as you."
"Nevertheless--to guard against all risks--leave the door open--"
He entered, but the door turned immediately upon its hinges.
"My Lord Basil--" shrieked Hormazd, "the door is shut--"
"I stumbled against it."
"Bring a light--open the door--" came a muffled voice from within.
"I shall soon return."
"Do not forget the light."
"Light!--Ay! You shall not want for light,--if what I say be not false: Et lux perpetua luceat eis," chanted the Grand Chamberlain in Requiem measure, as he strode away.
Silence, deep and sepulchral, succeeded. Tristan cowered on the floor, his face covered with his hands. If what he had overheard was true, he, too, was lost. What had happened? Who was the Grand Chamberlain's companion?
Now Hormazd began to scream and rave in the darkness. Terrible execrations broke from the Oriental's lips, as he hurled his body against the iron bars of his prison cell. Demoniacal yells waked the silent echoes. The other prisoners, alarmed and rendered restless, soon joined in, and soon the dark vaults of the Emperor's Tomb resounded with a veritable pandemonium, a chorus of the damned that caused Tristan to put his fingers to his ears lest he, too, go mad.
At nine o'clock that night the last visit was to be paid the prisoners. At nine o'clock Maraglia, the Castellan, came, attended by the guard, which waited outside. The Castellan was in a state of nervous excitement. As he entered Tristan's cell he looked about, as if he dreaded a listener, then he approached his prisoner and whispered something into his ear.
For a moment Tristan knew not what has happening to him. Was he alone with a mad man and was Maraglia too possessed?--
The Castellan, to prove his assertion that he was a bat, began forthwith to squeak, and waved his arms, as if they were wings.
Curious stories were told about Maraglia. No one knew, why he had retained his post so long amidst ever recurring changes, and it was whispered that he was subject to strange possessions of the mind. He faced his prisoner nervously, fingering a poniard in his belt. Tristan watched his every gesture.
A little foam came out of the corners of Maraglia's lips. He wrung his hands and his voice rose into a sort of shriek. He jerked his head half round towards the men-at arms outside in the gallery. The screams of Hormazd continued.
"It is the Ape of Antichrist," he whispered to Tristan. "I have a mind to try conclusions with him. Close the door."
Tristan's wits, preternaturally sharpened in his predicament put words in his mouth which he seemed unable to account for. He had heard rumors of the Castellan. Perchance he might turn his madness to account.
"I can tell you much," he said. "But not here! But one thing I perceive. You are approaching one of your bad spells."
Maraglia shrank back against the door. His face was pale as death.
"Then you know?" he squeaked.
Tristan nodded. The torch which the Castellan had placed in an iron holder that projected from the wall, was burning low and the resinous fumes filled the cell.
"Something I know--but not all! Yet, I believe I can cure you--"
"I am about to turn into a bat! And when I go abroad I scream like a bat--in a thin, high pitched tone. And I flap my arms--and fly away--thus--"
Tristan nodded wisely.
"I know the symptoms--they are of Satan. Nevertheless, I can cure you."
"Without conference with the evil powers?"
Tristan pondered.
"You shall not imperil your soul! But--take heed! It is well that you have spoken to me of these matters. For, from feeling that you are a bat, a bat you will become."
Maraglia was pale as a ghost.
"Then I was just in the nick of time?"
"You are already half immersed," Tristan replied in a deep and menacing tone. "Take heed lest you be utterly drowned."
The Castellan shivered as one in an ague.
"Every Friday at midnight the Black Mass is said by one Bessarion, that is of unthinkable age--a hideous wizard and High Priest of Satan. It is he who has cast the spell over me."
Hope mounted high in Tristan. The alert confidence of his companion animated him and he felt almost as if the great ordeal was over. A distant bell was tolling. Its tones came in muffled cadence into the night wrapt corridors of the Emperor's Tomb.
Nevertheless he shivered at the Castellan's confession. Maraglia, then, was under the spell of this Wizard of Hell.
"I have seen him stalking through these galleries," he turned to his gaoler. "But I possess a spell which renders him harmless. He cannot touch me--nor breathe his evil breath into my soul. I can compel him to take away the spell he has cast over you--that is, if you so wish it."
The Castellan squeaked and waved his arms.
"You would do this for me?"
"If you will not betray me. For only a more powerful spell than that which he possesses can take away the curse he has put upon you."
"Ah! If you would do this! It is coming upon me now. I am going mad. I am a bat!"
And Maraglia squeaked like a whole company of dusky mice, and flapped his arms as if he were about to fly away.
"This very night will I do it," Tristan replied. "But you must help me."
"What can I do?"
Tristan cast all upon one throw.
"Remove your guards from this corridor and leave me a light and a rope."
"It is but reasonable," Maraglia returned. "I will fetch them. When appears the wizard?"
"At midnight! See that I am not disturbed."
Maraglia nodded. Fear had almost deprived him of his senses.
"Last time I saw him he came from yonder corridor," Tristan informed the Castellan.
"That may not be!" the latter replied. "Unless he hath wings. This passage leads to the ramparts."
"It is possible I have been confused by the darkness," Tristan replied pensively. "Nevertheless, I will oblige you, Messer Maraglia."
The Castellan retired with many manifestations of his gratitude, leaving Tristan in possession of a lantern, a candle and a coil of rope.
It was midnight.
The sharp click of a flint upon steel was repeated several times before a spark fell upon the tinder and it caught with a blue, ghostly flicker. There were strange reflections in Tristan's cell. Curious steely lights played upon him.
Then the candle ignited. The glow widened out. Tristan peered about cautiously. The door of his cell had been left unfastened by Maraglia. He had no fear of his prisoner escaping. No one had ever escaped from these vaults, except to certain death.
He crept out into the corridor. It was dark as in the realms of the underworld. The silence of the tomb prevailed. After a time the passage made a sharp turn at right angles. A cooler air blew upon his face, wafted through an unbarred embrasure, beyond which showed a star-lit night without a moon, but not wholly dark.
Drawing himself up into the embrasure he stood at last upon a broad sill of stone. A cool breeze eddied around him. He was at an immense height. A vast portion of Rome lay below. The Tiber seemed like a river of lead. Far away to the left the dark cypresses of the Pincian Hill cut into the night sky in sombre silhouette. He was above the tombs of Hadrian and Caracalla.
Tristan shivered despite himself as he fastened the rope he had secured from the unwary Castellan to the stone ledge. It was not fear; but that actual, physical shrinking, which induces nausea, had him in its grip.
"There is Rome," he said to himself with a savage chuckle.
He made a stirrup loop and curved it round a boss of antique tile, which stretched above the abyss like a gargoyle. Then, with infinite precaution, he lowered the coil of rope.
Dawn was already heralded in the East. A faint grey light appeared in the direction of the Alban Hills. From over the Esquiline came the shrill trumpeting of a cock.
There was a horrible moment as Tristan's hands left the roof edge and he fell a foot to grasp the rope. He curled his legs about it, got it between his crossed feet and began to let himself down. The sinews of his arms seemed to creak. Once he passed an open window and distinctly heard the snores of the men-at-arms who were sleeping within. The descent seemed interminable. As seen from above, had there been any one to watch him, his form grew less and less. From a man it seemed to turn into an ape; from an ape as a night bird groping down the Mausoleum's side; from a bird it dwindled to a spider, spinning downward on a taut thread. Up there, on the height, the rope groaned and creaked upon the curved tile from which it hung. But tile and fibre held. Once his feet rested upon a leaden water pipe and he clung and swayed, glad of a momentary release from the frightful strain upon his arms. That was almost the last conscious sensation. Clinging to the rope he came down quick and more quickly. His arms rose and fell with the precision of a machine. At last he felt his feet upon solid ground, where he reeled and staggered like a drunken man.
He had traversed a hundred thirty-five feet of air.
