Outwardly and in daylight there was nothing noticeable about the sixth house in the Lane of the Sclavonians in Trastevere beyond the fact that it was a dwelling of a superior kind to those immediately surrounding it, which were chiefly ill-favored cottages of fishermen and boatmen, and had about it an air of almost sombre retirement.
It stood alone within a walled court, containing a few shrubs. The windows were few, high and narrow, and the front bore a rather forbidding appearance. One ascending to the flat roof would have found it to command on the left a desolate view of a square devoted to executions, and on the right a scarcely more cheerful prospect over the premises belonging to the convent of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Had the visitor been farther able to penetrate into the principal chamber of the first floor, on the night of the scene about to be related, he might indeed have found himself well repaid for his trouble.
This chamber, which was of considerable size and altogether devoid of windows, being lighted during the daytime by a skylight, carefully blinded from within, was now duskily illumined by a transparent device inlaid into the end wall and representing the beams of the rising moon gleaming from a sky of azure. The extremity of the room, which fronted the symbol, was semi-circular and occupied by a narrow table, before which moved a tall, shadowy form that paused now and then before a fire of fragrant sandal wood, which burned in a brazen tripod, passing his fingers mechanically, as it would seem, through the bluish flame. In its unsteady flicker the strange figures on the walls, which had defied the decree of Time, seemed to nod fantastically when touched by a fitful ray.
This was Hormazd, the Persian, the former confidant and counsellor of Marozia, in the heyday of her glory. In those days he had held forth in a turret chamber on the summit of Castel San Angelo, where he would read the stars and indulge his studies in the black arts to his heart's content. Driven forth by Alberic, after Marozia's fall, the Persian had taken up his abode in the Trastevere, where he continued to serve those who came to him for advice, or on business that shunned the light of day.
Now and then the Oriental bent his tall, spare form over a huge tome which lay open upon the table, the inscrutable, ascetic countenance with the deep, brilliant eyes seemingly plunged in deep, engrossing thought, but in reality listening intently, as for the approach of some belated caller.
The soft patter of hurried footsteps on the floor of the corridor without soon rewarded his attention. The rustle of a woman's silken garments caused him to give a start of surprise. A heavy curtain was raised and she glided noiselessly into his presence.
The woman's face was covered with a silken vizor, but her coronet of raven hair no less than the matchless figure, outlined against the crimson glow, at once proclaimed her rank.
The first ceremony of silent greeting absolved, the Persian's visitor permitted the black silken cloak which had enveloped her from head to toe, to fall away, revealing a form exquisitely proportioned. The ivory pallor of the throat, which rose like a marble column from matchless shoulders, and the whiteness of the bare arms, seemed even enhanced by the dusky background whose incense-laden pall seemed to oppress the very walls.
"I am trusting you to-night with unreserved confidence," the woman spoke in her rich, vibrant voice. "Many serve me from motives of selfishness and fear. Do you serve me, because I trust you."
She laid her white hand frankly upon his arm and the Persian, isolated above and below the strongest impulses of humanity, shivered under her touch.