Part 9

"Thereon have I built my plans. Some Circe must be found to administer to him the fatal lotus,--to estrange him from his country, from his leaders, from his hosts."

"But where is one to be trusted so supremely?" she questioned.

Crescentius had anticipated the question.

"There is but one in all Rome--but one."

"And she?" the question came almost in a whisper. "Do you know her?"

Crescentius breathed hard. For a moment he closed his eyes, praying inwardly for courage. At last he replied with seeming indifference:

"I have known her long. She is loyal to Rome and true to herself."

"Her name?" she insisted.

"Stephania."

A wild laugh resounded in the chamber. Its echoes seemed to mock those two, who faced each other, trembling, colourless.

"That was Benilo's advice."

Like a knife-thrust the words from Stephania's lips pierced the heart of the Senator of Rome.

Stephania stared at him in such bewilderment, as if she thought him mad. But when he remained silent, when she read in his downcast eyes the mute confirmation of his speech, she sprang from her couch, facing him in the whole splendour of her beauty.

"Surely you are jesting, my lord, or else you rave, you are mad?" she cried. "Or can it be, that my ears tinkle with some mockery of the fiend? Speak! You have not said it! You did not! You dared not."

She removed a stray lock of hair from her snow white brow, while her eyes burnt into those of Crescentius, like two orbs of living fire.

"Your ears did not belie you, Stephania," the Senator said at last. "I said you are the one--the only one."

With these words he took her hands in his and attempted to draw her down beside him, but she tore them from his grasp, while her face alternately paled and flushed.

"Nay," she spoke with cutting irony, "the Senator of Rome is a model husband. He disdains the dagger and poison phial, instead he barters his wife. You have an admirable code of morality, my lord! 'Tis a pity I do not share your views, else the fiend might teach me how to profit by your suggestion."

Crescentius did not interrupt the flow of her indignation, but his face betrayed a keenness of anguish which did not escape Stephania's penetrating gaze. She approached him and laying her hands on his shoulders bade him look her in the eye.

"How could you say this to me?" she spoke in softer, yet reproachful tones. "How could you? Has it come to the pass where Rome can but be saved by the arts of a wanton? If so, then let Rome perish,--and we ourselves be buried under her ruins."

Her eyes reflected her noble, undaunted spirit and never had Stephania appeared more beautiful to the Senator, her husband.

"Your words are the seal of loyalty upon your soul, Stephania," Crescentius replied. "Think you, I would cast away my jewel, cast it before these barbarians? But you do not understand. I will be more plain. It was not that part you were to assume."

Stephania resumed her seat by his side. Her bosom heaved and her eyes peered dimly through a mist of tears.

"Of all the hosts who crossed the Alps with him," Crescentius spoke with a voice, unsteady at first, but gradually gaining the strength of his own convictions, "none shares the emperor's dreams, none his hopes of reconstruction. An embassy from the Palatinate is even now on the way, to demand his return.--Not he! But there is one, the twin of his mind and soul--Gregory the Pontiff, who will soon have his hands full with a refractory Conclave, and will not be able to succour his friend in the realization of his fantastic dreams. He must be encouraged,--his watchfulness beguiled until we are strong enough to strike the final blow. Only an intellect equal to his own dares assail the task. He must be led by a firm hand, by a hand which he trusts--but by a hand never forgetful of its purpose, a hand closed to bribery of chattel or soul. He must be ruled by a mind that grasps all the strange excrescences of his own diseased brain. Let him build up his fantastic dream-empire, while Rome rallies her forces for a final reckoning, then let the mirage dissolve. This is the part I had assigned to you. I can entrust it to none else. Our hopes hang upon the fulfilment. Thus, his hosts dissatisfied, the electors muttering beyond the Alps, the Romans awakening to their own disgrace, the king at odds with his leaders and himself, the pontiff menaced by the hostile Cardinals, there is one hope left to us, to crush the invaders--our last. If it miscarries,--there will not be gibbets enough in the Campagna for the heads that will swing."

Stephania had gradually regained her composure. Raising her eyes to those of Crescentius, she said with hesitation:

"There is truth in your words, but I like not the task. I hate Otto with all my Roman heart; with all my soul do I hate that boy whose lofty aims shame our depravity. 'Tis an ill time for masks and mummeries. Why not entrust the task to the one so eminently fitted for it,--Benilo, the glittering snake?"

"There will be work enough for all of us," Crescentius replied evasively. Somehow he hated to admit even to his wife, that he mistrusted the Chamberlain's serpent wisdom. He had gone too far. He dared not recede without betraying his own misgivings.

Stephania heaved a deep sigh.

"What would you have me do?"

"You have so far studiously avoided the king. You have not even permitted him to feast his eyes on the most beautiful woman in all Rome. Be gracious to him, enter into his vagaries, point out to him old temples and forgotten tombs, newly dug-up friezes and musty crypts! Tell him of our legends and lead him back into the past, from whose labyrinth no Ariadne will guide him back to the present hour,--It is for Rome I ask."

"Truly, were I a man, I would not trap my foe by woman's wiles, as long as I could grip mace or lance. Is there no man among all these Romans of yours treacherous enough for the task?"

"It is even their treachery I dread," replied Crescentius. "Ambition or the lust of gain may at the last moment carry victory from the field. My maxim, you know: Trust none--Fear none! These festivities are to dazzle the aim of suspicion, to attach the people once more to our cause and to give you the desired opportunity to spread your nets. Then lead him step for step away from life, until he shall himself become but a spectre of the past."

"It is a game unworthy of you and me," Stephania replied after a long pause. "To beguile a trusting foe--but the end? What is it to be?"

"Once in the councils of the king, you will lull his suspicions to slumber! You will counteract the pressure of his flaxen-haired leaders! You will make him a puppet in your hands, that has no will save yours. Then sound the watchword: Rome and Crescentius!"

"I too love glory," Stephania spoke almost inaudibly. "Glory achieved by valour, not intrigue. Give me time, my lord. As yet I hardly know if I am fitted for the high mission you have laid out for me. Give me but time."

"There shall be no further mention of this matter between us," Crescentius replied. "You will be worthy of your self and of Rome, whose fates I have laid into your hands. The task is grave, but great will be the reward. Where will the present state lead to? Is there to be no limit to humiliation? Is every rebellion unlawful? Has Fate stamped on our brow, Suffer and be silent?"

"For whom then is this comedy to be enacted?"

Crescentius shrugged his shoulders.

"Say for ourselves if you will. Deem you, Stephania, I would put my head in the sling for that howling mob down yonder in their hovels? For the rabble which would stone him, who gives them bread? Or for the barons of Rome, who have encroached upon our sovereignty? If Fate will but grant me victory, their robber dens shall crumble into dust, as if an earthquake had levelled them. For this I have planned this Comedy of Love--for this alone."

Stephania slowly rose from her seat beside the Senator. Every vestige of colour had faded from her face.

"Surely I have not heard aright," she said. "Did you say 'Comedy of Love'?"

Crescentius laughed, a low but nervous laugh.

"Why stare you so, Stephania, as if I bade you in all truth to betray me? Is it so hard to feign a little affection for this wingless cherub whom you are to mould to your fancies? The choice is his,--until--"

"Until it is his no longer," Stephania muttered under her breath, which quickly came and went.

There was a pause of some duration, during which the Senator of Rome restlessly paced the apartment. Stephania had resumed her former station and seemed lost in deep rumination. From without no sounds were audible. The city slept. The evening star burnt low down in the horizon. The moon sickle slept on the crests of the mountains of Albano.

At last Stephania rose and laid her white arm on the shoulder of the Senator of Rome.

"I will do your bidding," she said slowly, looking straight into his eyes, "for the glory of Rome and your own!"

"For our glory," Crescentius replied with a deep sigh of relief. "I knew you would not fail me in this hour of need."

Stephania raised her hand, as if deprecating the reward.

"For your glory alone, my lord,--it will suffice for both of us," she replied hurriedly, as her arms sank down by her side.

"Be it so, since you so wish it," Crescentius replied. "I thank you, Stephania! And now farewell. It waxes late and grave matters of state require my instant attention. Await not my return to-night."

And kissing her brow, Crescentius hurriedly left his wife's apartment and ascended a spiral stairway, leading to the chamber of his astrologer. Suddenly he staggered, as if he had seen his own ghost and turned sick at heart.

"What have I done!" he gasped, grasping his forehead with both hands. "What have I done!"

Was it a presentiment that suddenly rushed over Him, prompting him to retrace his steps, prompting him to take back his request? For a moment he wavered. His pride and his love struggled for supremacy,--but pride conquered. He would not have Stephania think that he feared a rival on earth. He would not have her believe that he questioned her love.

After Crescentius had departed from the chamber, Stephania gazed long and wistfully into the starlit night without, so calm and so serene.

Then a laugh, wild and shrill, broke from her lips, and sinking back among her cushions, a shower of tears came to her relief.

*CHAPTER IX*

*THE SERMON IN THE GHETTO*

The Contubernium Hebraeorum, as it is loftily styled in the pontifical edicts of the time, the Roman Ghetto, was a district of considerable extent, reclaimed originally from the swamps of the Tiber at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and surrounded either by lofty walls, or houses which were not permitted to have even a loop-hole to the exterior. Five massive gates, guarded by the halberdiers of the Roman magistrate were opened at sun-rise and closed at sun-set to emit and to receive back their jealously guarded inmates, objects of unutterable contempt and loathing with the populace, into whose heart the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages had infused a veneration and love for the person of the Redeemer rather than for his attributes, and whose passions and devotions were as yet unalloyed by the skepticism and indifference which began to pervade the higher ranks of society in the century of the Renaissance.

Three or four times a year, a grand attempt at conversion was made, the Pope appointing the most renowned ecclesiastics to deliver the sermons.

On the occasion about to be described towards the end of the year 999, the Jews had good reason to expect a more than commonly devout throng in the train of the pontifical delegate. They had prepared accordingly. Upon entering the gates of the Ghetto the beholder was struck with the dreary and melancholy aspect of the houses and the emptiness of the little shops which appeared like holes in the walls. Such precious wares as they possessed had been as carefully concealed as those they had abstracted on the eve of their departure from Egypt. The exceeding narrowness of the streets, which were in some parts scarcely wide enough to allow two persons to walk abreast, and seemed in a manner arched, in-as-much as one story extended above the others, increased the disagreeable effect. Noisome smells greeted the nostrils on every turn and the flutter of rags from numerous dark lattices seemed to testify to the poverty within.

Such the Roman Ghetto appeared on the eve of the great harangue for which the reigning Pontiff, Gregory V, had, in accordance with the tradition of the Holy See, delegated the most renowned light of the church. Not a Jew was to be seen, much less a Jewess, throughout the whole line of march from the gates of the Ghetto to the large open square where they held their markets, and where they had been summoned to assemble in mass. The long narrow and intricate windings misled many who did not keep pace with the Pope's delegate and his attendants, but the greater part of the rabble rushed into the square like a mountain stream, leaping over opposing boulders, shouting, laughing, yelling and crushing one another, as if they were taking possession of a conquered city.

The square itself was paved with volcanic tufa, very unevenly laid. In the center was a great fountain of granite without the least ornament, intended exclusively for the use of the inmates of this dreary quarter. Into this square radiated numberless streets and alleys giving its disordered architecture the appearance of being reft and split into chasms, some of the houses being doubtfully propped with timbers.

Round the fountain stone benches had been arranged with tables of similar crude material, at which usually sat the Elders, who decided all disputes, regulated the market and governed this inner empire partly by the maxims of common sense and justice, partly by the laws prescribed by their sacred books, severe indeed and executed with rigour, without provoking a thought of appeal to the milder and often opposing Christian judicature.

But now this Sanhedrim was installed in its place of honour for a different purpose; to hear with outward complacency and inner abhorrence their ancient law denounced and its abolition or reform advocated. For this purpose a movable pulpit, which resembled a bronze caldron on a tripod, carried by four Jewish converts, was duly planted under the supreme direction of the companion friar of the pontifical delegate, who ordered its position reversed several times, ere it seemed to suit his fancy.

The delegate of the Pope himself, surrounded by the pontifical guards, was still kneeling in silent prayer, when a stranger, who had followed the procession from afar, entered the Ghetto, unremarked in the general tumult and ensconced himself out of observation in a dark doorway. From his point of vantage, Eckhardt had leisure to survey the whole pandemonium. On his left there rose an irregular pile of wood-work, built not without some pretentions to architecture, with quaint carvings and devices of birds and beasts on the exposed joints and window-frames, but in a state of ruinous decay. About midheight sloped a pent-house with a narrow balcony, supported like many of the other buildings by props of timber, set against it from the ground. The lower part of the house was closed and barred and had the appearance of having been forsaken for decades.

While, himself unseen Eckhardt surveyed every detail of his surroundings; the preparations for the sermon continued. Beyond the seats of the Elders was assembled the great mass of those who were to profit by the exhortation, remarkable for their long unkempt beards, their glittering eyes and their peculiar physiognomies.

Beyond the circle of these compelled neophytes a tumultuous mob struggled for the possession of every point, whence a view of the proceedings could be obtained, quarrelling, scoffing and buffeting the unresisting Jews, whose policy it was not to offer the least pretext for pillage and general massacre, which on these occasions hovered over their heads by a finer thread than that to which hung the sword of Damocles. Without expostulations they submitted to the rude swaying of the mob, to their blows and revilings, opposing to their tormentors a seemingly inexhaustible endurance. But the horror, anxiety, and rage which glowed in their bosoms were strongly reflected in their faces, peering through the smoky glare of innumerable torches, which they were compelled to exhibit at all the windows of their houses. Engaged in this office only now and then a woman appeared for a brief instant, for the most part withered and old, or veiled and muffled with more than Turkish scrupulousness.

At last the pulpit was duly hoisted and placed to the satisfaction of the attending friar. The Pope's delegate having concluded his prayer arose and two of the Elders advanced, to present him with a copy of the Old Testament, for from their own laws were they to be refuted. They offered it with a deep Oriental bend and the humble request, that the representative of his Holiness, their sovereign, would be pleased to deliver his message. The monk replied briefly that it was not the message of any earthly power which he was there to deliver and then mounted the pulpit by a ladder, which his humbler associate held for him. The attendant friar then sprinkled a lustration round the pulpit with a bunch of hyssop, which he had dipped in an urn of holy water. This he showered liberally upon the Elders who dared not resent it, and ground their teeth in impotent rage.

Strangely interested, as Eckhardt found himself in the scene about to be enacted, watching the rolling human sea under the dark blue night-sky, he found his own curiosity shared by a second personage, who had taken his position immediately below the door-way, in which he stood concealed. This worthy wore a large hat, slouched over his face, which gave him the appearance of a peasant from the marshes; but his dirty gray mantle and crooked staff denoted him a pilgrim. Of his features very little was to be seen, save his glittering minx-eyes. These he kept fixed on the balcony of the ruined house, which had also attracted Eckhardt's attention. At other times that worthy's gaze searched the shadows beneath the gloomy structure with something of mingled scrutiny and scorn.

"Surely this boasted steel-hearted knave of yours means to play us false? Where is the rogue? He keeps us waiting long."

These words, as Eckhardt perceived, were addressed to an individual, who, to judge from the mask he wore, did not wish to be recognized.

"Were it against the fiend, I would warrant him," answered a hushed voice. "But folks here have a great reverence for this holy man, who goes to comfort a plague-stricken patient more cheerfully than another visits his lady-love. And, if he needs must die, were it not wiser to venture the deed in some of the lonely places he haunts, than here in the midst of thousands?"

"Nay," replied his companion in an undertone, every word of which was understood by his unseen listener. "Here alone can a tumult be raised without much danger, and as easily quelled. I do not set forests on fire, to warm my feet. Here they will lay the mischief to the Jews--elsewhere, suspicion would be quickly aroused, for what bravo would deem it worth his while to slay a wretched monk?"

Again the pseudo-pilgrim's associate peered into the shadows. Then he plucked his companion by the sleeve of his mantle.

"Yonder he comes--and by all my sins--streaming like a water-dog! Raise your staff, but no--he sees us," concluded the masked individual, shrinking back into the shadows.

Presently a third individual joined the pilgrim and his friend.

"Don Giovan! Thou dog! How long hast kept me gaping for thee!" the principal speaker hissed into the bravo's face as he limping approached. "But, by the mass,--who baptized thee so late in life?"

There was something demoniacal in the sunken, cadaverous countenance of John of the Catacombs, as he peered into the speaker's eyes. His ashen-pale face with the low brow and inflamed eyelids, never more fittingly illustrated a living sepulchre. He growled some inarticulate response, half stifled by impotent rage and therefore lost upon his listener. For at this moment the voice of the preacher was heard above all the confused noise and din in the large square, reading a Hebrew text, which he subsequently translated into Latin. It was the powerful voice of the speaker, which prevented Eckhardt from distinctly hearing the account which the bravo gave of his forced immersion. But towards the conclusion of his talk, the pilgrim drew the bravo deeper into the shadows of the overhanging balcony and now their conversation became more distinct.

"Dog of a villain!" he addressed John of the Catacombs. "How dare you say that you will fail me in this? Have you forgotten our compact?"

"That I have not, my lord," replied the bravo, shuddering with fear and the cold of his dripping garments. "But an angel was sent for the prevention of the deed! No man would have braved John of the Catacombs and lived."

"Thou needest not proclaim my rank before all this rabble," growled the pseudo-pilgrim. "Have I not warned thee, idiot? Deemest thou an angel would have touched thee, without blasting thee? What had thine assailant to do to stir up the muddy waves? An angel! Coward? Is the bribe not large enough? Name thine own hire then!"

"A pyramid of gold shall not bribe me to it," replied the bravo doggedly. "But I am a true man and will keep no hire which I have not earned. So come with me to the catacombs, and I will restore all I have received of your gold. But the saints protect that holy man--I will not touch him!"

The pilgrim regarded the speaker with ill-repressed rage.

"Holy--maybe--," he sneered, "holy, according to thy country's proverb: 'La Cruz en los pechos, el diablo en los hechos.' Thou superstitious slave! What has one like thou to fear from either angel or devil?"

"May my soul never see paradise, if I lift steel against that holy man!" persisted the bravo.

"Fool! Coward! Beast!" snarled the pilgrim, gnashing his teeth like a baffled tiger. "You refuse, when this monk's destruction will set the mob in such roaring mutiny as will give your noble associates, whom I see swarming from afar, a chance to commence a work that will enrich you for ever?"

"For ever?" repeated the bravo, somewhat dubiously. "But--it is impossible. See you not he is surrounded by the naked swords of the guards? I thought he would have come darkling through some narrow lane, according to his wont, else I should never--moreover I have taken an oath, my lord, and a man would not willingly damn himself!"

"Will you ever and ever forget my injunction and how much depends upon its observance?" snarled the disguised pilgrim, looking cautiously around. "I warn you again, not to proclaim my rank before all your cut-throats! You swore," he then continued more sedately, "not to lift steel against him! But have I not seen you bring down an eagle's flight with your cross-bow? Where is it?"

"I have sold it to some foreign lord, from beyond the Alps, where they love such distant fowling," the bravo replied guardedly. "I for my part prefer to steal my game with a club, or a dagger."