Eckhardt made the sign of the cross, but the question rising to his lips was anticipated by Benilo, who pointed towards a remote region of the Aventine, just as the peals of the chiming bells, softened by distance into indistinct tremulous harmonies, and the clarion clearness of the cymbals again smote the stillness with their strangely luring clangour.
"Yonder lies the palace of Theodora," Benilo remarked indifferently.
Eckhardt listened with a strange sensation.
He remembered the pageant he had witnessed in the Navona, the pageant, from whose more minute contemplation he had been drawn by the incident with Gian Vitelozzo.
"Who is the woman?" he questioned with some show of interest.
"Regarding that matter there is considerable speculation," replied Benilo.
"Have you any theory of your own?"
The Chamberlain shrugged his shoulders.
"Heard you ever of a remote descendant of Marozia, still living in Italy?"
"I thought they had all been strangled long ago."