The Hill of Venus

The uncertainty of the fate of the Ghibelline host weighed heavily upon him. Where was Conradino, the fair-haired imperial youth, where were the leaders of the vanquished iron-serried companies, whose march under the proudly floating banners of the Sun-Soaring Eagle of Hohenstauffen he had witnessed from the summits of Monte Cassino? Had they reached the sheltering passes of the Apennines, had they fallen into Anjou's hands?

Fascinated, yet oppressed by dire forebodings, Francesco gazed out over the land. In a flood of crimson and gold, trailing his banners through the western sky, the sun had sunk to rest. The great mass of the castello of Astura was silent and dark in the swiftly descending southern night, save where an errant moonbeam glittered over the gateway and round-towers, shining obliquely over the massive walls, while two great circles of shadows enclosed the stronghold of the Frangipani, like huge Saturnian rings. Brightly, like a silver net flung wide upon the plains below, the moonbeams played upon the surrounding marshes the wild, rock-strewn maremmas, while a stagnant pool below the Groves of Circé reflected an indigo sky, pierced by the blazing constellations of the south.

As in a dream, he turned his steps towards the hostelry, where, despite the protests of the Regent, he had persisted in remaining. It suffered him not in the palace, amid that gay gentry of the court, near Ilaria, whose society he must forego, while others, less constrained, might bask in the perfume of her presence. Forever he thought of her as of a flower, entrusted by a generous divinity to earth-born men, to tend and to surround with care.

Arrived at the inn, Francesco found the public room occupied by a throng of idlers, who would scarcely take their departure before midnight. Stranger to all, as he was, the guests in the place greeted him civilly, as a possible companion, after having studiously examined the cut of his garments. One individual especially favored him with his close attention, unnoticed by Francesco, who, traversing the room, started upstairs to his chamber.

Ere he had reached the door, this individual swaggered through the crowd and touched him on the shoulder. Francesco looked at him vaguely; something familiar teased him in the man's face.

"Am I addressing Messer Francesco Villani, the papal envoy?" he said awkwardly.

Francesco nodded with an air of vague wonder.

"What is your business with me?"

"I am sent to bring you to one who is dying." —

Francesco, with the custom of his confraternity, turned instantly to go, but on a sudden impulse he lingered.

"Who is your master?" he asked with a quick misgiving.

"Raniero Frangipani," replied the other gruffly, then after a pause:

"He was mortally wounded in the field of Scurcola!"

"Lead the way!" Francesco said with quick resolve.

The man nodded assent, and together they strode out into the street.

"He is in fearsome pain, – about to die," he said. "He is very anxious about his soul's salvation." —

Raniero Frangipani about to die! Raniero Frangipani anxious about his soul! The idea touched Francesco with grim humor. Strange thoughts came to him, as they hastened through the lonely streets. The bright vision of the night shone before his eyes, alluring, beckoning, vanishing.

The vision vanished for good in the chamber of death. No other image could hold its own before the face of Raniero. The brow was damp; the unshaven lips were drawn back from the teeth, giving the countenance a sinister aspect. The eyes not only glared, but searched.

A scared-looking priest was in the room. He hailed Francesco with relief.

"Thank God, you are come," he exclaimed. "I am summoned to hear the confession, but the patient will not make it till he has seen you – Messer Capitano, I withdraw – " he stammered, for the awful eyes had turned in his direction and the lips had uttered a sound.

Raniero turned painfully to Francesco, satisfaction, anxiety and something else in his face.

"Give me the blessing!" he snarled. "Give it quick!" —

Francesco did not at once comply. He was looking at Raniero, pity and horror, repugnance and tenderness at war in his face.

"Must I ask twice?"

Raniero had found his voice, harsh, imperious, in all its weakness.

Francesco could not refuse to execute his commission, though inwardly he wondered why Raniero had been brought to Naples instead of Astura. He spoke slowly, and the Frangipani's face expressed satisfaction.

"That ought to be strong," muttered the wounded man. "A saint's blessing should have great power, – should it not? You ought to know about such things!"

He spoke with an effort, yet with more force than would have been supposed possible.

"It will be of no avail, if one dies unrepentant," said Francesco.

"Well, I shall not die unrepentant," returned Raniero with a curious look. "I shall be honest, – and thorough! Have you the indulgence, – and the last absolution, – and the Host, – and – the oil?" he continued hoarsely. "They make a good showing, – if one is really holy! One takes one's little precautions!"

Something like terror mingled with hatred flared up in his eyes, as he spoke; then, becoming more direct, he turned to Francesco. "And now, – for you and me!" —

White hate blazed suddenly in the eyes, then was quenched beneath the light of cunning.

Francesco was mute. How could he speak to this man of the love of God!

"I am waiting!" growled Raniero, eyeing the other fiercely. "Speak the prayer for the dying!"

Francesco moved not. He looked at the sick man spellbound, as a bird would at a snake. The words he wanted to speak died in the utterance.

"I have never questioned one of the Church's doctrines," said Raniero. "Apparently you are more of a heretic than I." —

"It may well be," said Francesco absently.

The other eyed him coldly, and a silence fell. In the heart of it grew and deepened a significance.

At last Raniero spoke.

"Of all men living, I have hated you the most!"

He was rolling his eyes fearfully; the face was on guard.

"I have never injured you," replied Francesco. "Look within my heart. Naught is there towards you but compassion!"

"Looking in – your heart, I find therein the image – of my wife, Ilaria. As ever, – looking in her heart, – I find therein – your own!"

Raniero hissed the words; the dilated glaring eyes were as a weapon to pierce the heart of which he spoke.

"It is true!" Francesco cried out with bitter shame. "Yet if your eyes can see, they behold in my heart the image of the purest woman, before whom all my thoughts do worship, save rebels still unconquered."

Listening on the stair without, soldier and priest nodded to each other at the sound of the "De Profundis clamavi ad te." All was going suitably in the death-chamber.

And Raniero listened, as the other knelt. A spasm seemed to pass over his face.

"Do you still hate me?" asked Francesco anxiously, when the invocation was ended. It was painful to him to think that his shadow stood between this man and eternity.

"A little," replied Raniero with that curious smile. "But I am almost sure that I shall hate you less – in a moment. You remember – I have taken from you – Ilaria!"

There was a strange note of triumph in his speech.

"Do you forgive even that?" asked Raniero with some anxiety.

"I have forgiven," said the other with bowed head.

"Come hither then!" cried Raniero. Craving was in his tones and eyes. "Make on my forehead, and on my breast, in token of your forgiveness, – the sign of the holy cross!"

He seemed to grow faint. A strange restlessness had seized him. He had closed his eyes; his lips moved as in prayer. One hand stirred beneath the cover.

Francesco came to his side, and stooping began solemnly to trace the sign.

Concentrated hate, loosed from its leash, snarled, shone in Raniero's face. Francesco saw nothing. A lifted hand, – a glittering flash: the knife struck fierce and deep. But the hand that guided it, trembled; it missed the heart. With an outcry of pain Francesco staggered and fell backward.

"Gr-r-r-h!" snarled Raniero, like a great cat, growling over its prey, as he leaped from the bed.

At the sound of the fall the two waiting without had rushed in. Seizing the opportune moment, Raniero dashed past them, out into the darkness, leaving them with his unconscious victim.

Removed to the inn, where Raniero's messenger had found him, Francesco's unconscious state slowly gave way to a delirium, which made constant attendance imperative. Terror-stricken by the act and its probable consequences, the two who had been present in Raniero's sick-chamber had summoned a leech, whose efforts to break the delirium of the sufferer seemed at first of little avail.

Now he was at Avellino, in the garden, at dusk. Roses were everywhere, in riotous profusion, – flame roses, every one curled into fiery petal-whorls, dancing in the garden-dusk under a red, red sky. Now the chariot of Amor! The rose chaplet has burned Amor's brow! Oh! Turn away from the tortured face of the poor young God of Love! No matter, we will see the pageant out! But that woman with the Scarlet Robe must not be in the show! She is the Woman of the Red Tower! Lead her away! Francesco must wear the fiery circlet and march with the rest!

Now he is at Viterbo! Clement, most Holy Father, do not caper about so strangely! Take off those striped clothes! At least, if you will wear them, put your tiara aside. Yes, – you juggle excellently well with those many balls. White! Black! How high you toss them up! How deftly you catch them! Ha! We see the trick. With each toss a white ball turns black. They are all black now, and Messeré, the Cardinals are grinning! Horror! Are those the Cardinals? Hoofs in red stockings? Horns peering out under the cap? The scarlet robes are flames of a burning village, and the Cardinals point long claws and hiss applause, while the mountebank weeps. And Francesco weeps too!

Now the serene peace of the wide-glimmering sea! Golden columns are shining through the water! He turns to the shore, – and as he turns the great sea stirs. It heaves, it writhes, it rises! With onward movement, as of a coiling snake, the whole vast liquid brilliance rushes upon the temple. Mighty billows of beryl curve and break in sheets of whitest foam, – not foam, rather the soft limbs of sea-nymphs. Within the green translucence, – ah! the threatening splendor! Behold the awful, tottering walls!

The crash has come! In the depths of the sea Francesco stands alone! The temple still rises around him, no more a ruin, but perfect in every part! The light is emerald. He stands by an altar, – no, it is Fonté Gaia! Bending down he beholds first a dizzying glimmer, as of sun-rays reflected from wet bright pebbles, set in gay patterns at the bottom. Presently his own reflection clears: the face of Ilaria, lovely beyond all memory or dream, is bending beside it.

The White Lady! She is there in her gown, creeping with brightest broideries. She offers him a golden cup! "Drink, Francesco!" she implores. Strange sea-lights waver about her beauty; in a way she is changed; but it is the voice of the girl he has loved better than all the world. Suddenly a shadow stands between them. He shivers in the warm air. —

What is there between Ilaria and Stefano Maconi!

Now some one flies past, a cord around his neck.

"Beware!" cries a voice, and on the rainbow brightness of Ilaria falls the shadow of mighty wings. Swooping down from the roof, one of the great demons of Lecceto hovers, poised hawk-like. The face is Raniero's; the body, that of a vulture. Francesco, horror-stricken, watches for the fiend to dart, to fasten his claws in Ilaria's dusky hair, to bear her aloft, away, her shrieks trailing after her. But this does not happen. In a faint light, like a mountain-mist at dawn, the whole scene fades away, and Francesco bursts into wild and violent weeping that seems as if it would drain his soul away.

When, after a few days, Francesco opened his eyes, he found himself in a high-vaulted room of the palace, Ilaria bending over him wide-eyed, pale of face. With a choked outcry he grasped the soft white hands to his lips, his eyes raised to her in long, mute questioning. She bent over him and kissed his lips.

"I love you," she whispered, then looked away.

His questionings at last elicited the response that at the behest of the Regent he had been brought to the palace, where Ilaria herself had been tending to his comfort. The name of his assailant had remained no secret. Yet, beyond vague whisperings, it was not again alluded to.

Sleep, deep and dreamless, blessed the racked body throughout the day; the sleep that leaves one's past life far behind and from which one wakes in weak expectancy and the helpless peace of a new-born child.

It was at the Vesper hour that this waking came to Francesco. Sunset light filled the gloom of the high-vaulted room. A distant silver gleam had filled him with strange comfort and strange sorrow. Ilaria had left him in care of the leech, a little Greek with restless, ever-shifting eyes. Through the casement the evening star looked in. Beyond Castel del Ovo he divined the far-trembling sea, quieted to a pure colorless memory of the day that had died, yet brighter than the darkening skies. —

Lying peacefully convalescent, Francesco looked back as from a still haven on the storms that had shaken him since his departure from Avellino. Had a great enfranchisement or a great imprisonment befallen him? Life, the master, would show him in good time. Certainly the entrance into fresh intellectual regions which had intoxicated him for the time, seemed less important now. For one thing, he perceived the passion for novelty, as synonymous with progress, to be a mere delusion of the arch-wizard, Time. And, in a flash, he saw that it was but the old uncertainty in a new sphere. Was the Church the visible expression of Life? Must he remain forever under the yoke, to atone for his own existence, hungering after that which other men freely enjoyed? And suddenly, like a flash, a phase of his dream leaped into his wakeful state. He closed his eyes and groaned.

What was there between Ilaria Caselli and Stefano Maconi?

CHAPTER VI

THE CRIMSON NIGHT

IT had been a day of driving wind and rain. The sound of the sea beat weirdly through the streets of Naples. The great street of the Provencals leading from Castel del Ovo to Castel Nuovo was covered with spray. Within the palace of the Regent there was singing and feasting. Distant strains of music wandered out towards the night to Francesco's chamber. They seemed to whisper of things that were not for him, and he set his teeth with a smothered groan.

Ilaria was there, and Stefano Maconi! He, the monk, had not been bidden to the feast.

And slowly there came to him a memory, vague and confused, of a weary wandering through endless night, torn by temptation and desire, raging with defiance at his fate, consumed by a fear that ran through his veins like fire and seemed to scorch the very soul within him. Suddenly blind fury at his impotence in the face of a supreme and arrogant power invaded his being. Resist as he would, he was the bondsman of the Church!

At last it suffered Francesco no longer in his chamber.

Entering a dark passage, he crept past silent courts, through narrow galleries. When he heard the sound of footsteps he dropped back into the shadows. The music allured and repelled him, and hungry-eyed he lurched forward, until he had gained a space above the great hall, whence he might catch a glimpse of the merriment below.

The banqueting hall was a riot of color. On its columns of polished marble, veined in green and rose, light played in sliding gleams from great lamps of wrought bronze, hung by chains around the dome and between the pillars. The floor of glowing mosaic was overlaid with rugs of fantastic color and with tawny skins of beasts. The walls were wide panels of mosaics, set in stucco, vivid with red and blue, green and azure, picturing scenes of hunting and carousal. Perfumes burned in silver jars, set on pedestals of black marble along the walls, sending forth faint spirals of smoke into the heated air. The long table, lined on either side with men and women, was directly beneath the dome. Looking down upon it, Francesco saw a confusion of gold and silver dishes with the ruby glow of Samian plates, and cups gleaming among strewn leaves and blossoms. The garments of the guests were as a fringe of color about the table's edge, purple, saffron and gold, crimson, green and white.

The central figure at the board was Ilaria. She sat between Stefano Maconi and another noble. At times her gaiety bordered on delirium, though her smiling face, proudly upheld as though she scorned to give way before the eyes upon her, was white, but her lips were as scarlet as the flowers she wore. She had changed her attire since she had left him. A Persian gauze, filmy as mist, enveloped her sylph-like form, surmounted by a head-dress of gold, in which two poppies flamed upon either temple. Never had she looked more beautiful, not even at the parting-feast at Avellino, when alone she had entered the dusky dining-hall and had taken her seat apart from him. Then, as now, she had worn the red rose; the other was long wilted, forgotten perchance. The flowers she wore were of a deep, intense color, almost like blood upon the stainless skin of her exposed throat.

She had not even informed him of the evening's festivities. Was it to save him pain, in not desiring his presence, – was it in order not to subject him to the taunts and insults of the Neapolitans? Francesco noted the smile of her parted lips; he noted the vivaciousness with which she received the adoration of her guests. Yet, while he looked on from the heights of his dreary solitude, could he have seen Ilaria's eyes, they would have taught him different, for they never participated in the smile of her lips. Something like jealousy gripped him at last, he clenched his teeth and the scene below him swam in a blood-red mist.

She was lost to him, – always he had known it, known the hopelessness of his passion, all the sweeter for the bitterness that was in it, – but never until then had the knowledge so come home to him. He would have liked to force his way in among these smirking, soft cavaliers, and tear her from their midst; in his hot eyes there raged hate and love. His thoughts maddened him. This was her life, – and what was his? She would leave him the prey of all the devils of jealousy and fear, which tore his breast. He groaned aloud, and dropped his face in his hands, a strange figure of desperate longing, desperate bewilderment, rebellion and pain. He shook to the primal passions of love and hate that tore him, love for one, – hate for all that had gone to make the conditions of his life what they must be; according to the measure of his pain he suffered in fierce revolt against the mocking Fates that were stronger than he. His place was by her side, at the festal board, – and while another had purchased and possessed her body, her soul was his, – his, – his, for all time and all eternity. He it was who had waked her heart from its empty sleep, he who taught it first to live and love, – he, her soul's lord, even as the other her body's master, – he, the monk!

"Will the wound in your heart heal, when I shall have gone – perhaps forever?" he muttered, "or will your love fade and die? It may be that it shall be never quite forgotten, – that in after days a word, a song, the fragrance of a flower shall revive a dim memory. But my love must last, – to burn and sear. – Ah, beloved! We had no right to happiness, you and I! But wherefore not? And who decreed it so? Long months have I lain in darkness, for I dreamed of the time when I should come to you! Now the dream has gone from me! On all the earth there is none so lonely, as I am!" —

Again he buried his face in his hands, crouching against the wall. The music of unseen players rose to him like a breath from that scarcely vanished past playing upon him; calloused body and sensitive tortured soul, conjuring forth visions of dead golden hours, weaving its own poignant spell. Voices from the hall mingled with it, in talk and heedless laughter. When life was gay and careless, when wine was red and eyes were bright and faces fair, – who would pause to give thought to another's sorrow? And he – a monk! —

Minutes dropped away, link by link, from the golden chain of Time. A faint gleam of light playing on Francesco's features revealed the scarring passion in his face, signs visible of the chaos of inward tumult which tore him, of the slow forces gathering for the inevitable battle waged somewhere, somehow, by every human soul. And that face, haggard, with haunted shadowy eyes, looked all at once strangely purged of the heat of its passion, for on it was the presage of the fierce, slow travail of spirit rending flesh.

Her white purity had raised her above him; if he had wakened her soul, she had in turn given him a soul within his soul, wakening it to what it never knew before, new dreams, new ambitions, new desires. Through her he had seen the great world which was her world, wherein lay all for which men long and strive. One glimpse he had; and now the gates were closed and the light was gone and he was thrust back into outer darkness. —

A peal of laughter rose to him, a burst of music, a half hundred voices shouting acclaim in response to some unheard toast. He looked down once more into the light and the color of the great hall, seeing one there only, out of all that brilliant throng, one fair and drooping, with scarlet poppies framing her white face. Long and long he looked, as though he would burn her image upon his heart and mind forever: the woman he had lost, and who had never been his.

Suddenly he saw Ilaria start. Some one seemed to have brought a message to her. With a smile to those seated next to her, she arose from the board and, hurrying across the hall, entered a dim, dusky corridor. Almost at the same moment Francesco, impelled by curiosity and misgivings, quitted his point of vantage, and, turning into the nearest passage, descended by a winding stair into the hall below. In some way the intricate labyrinth of corridors confused his mind, and he found himself in a circular chamber of rough blocks of stone, with two doors. Around the walls hung instruments of war, of torture, of the chase; chains with heavy balls of iron attached, a stand of spears, another of great swords. Here were also great six-foot bows, such as the Saracen archers used, and suits of armor with shields and breast-plates, and crested helmets of brass and iron.

Francesco paused, listened for Ilaria's footsteps, then, failing to hear a sound, traversed the chamber on tiptoe until he came to the opposite door.

Beyond this chamber there opened a spacious court. Blindly Francesco stumbled onward, wondering at the silence, and wondering what direction Ilaria had taken, when, traversing the court, he suddenly paused at the entrance of a dimly lighted hall.

A single cresset burned upon the dais wall, and the fire on the ground hearth under the louvre sent up a drift of smoke into the murk above. The great space was full of shadows and of silence.

Suddenly Francesco gave a start, as if he had seen a spectre.

In an oaken chair by the dais sat Raniero Frangipani. The brutal expression of his countenance seemed even enhanced by the shadows which played upon it, and the expression of his eyes boded little good for whomsoever his presence was intended. His sword lay beside him on the table; his shield was propped against a carved mazor-bowl. Francesco felt there was mischief brewing, wondered, and held his breath.

Raniero's figure seemed part of the silence and the shadows of the hall. His face was cruel and alert, and the light from the cresset played in red streaks upon his helmet. His attitude seemed to indicate that he was not here by chance, and the furtive glances he cast about him seemed to confirm this supposition.

What was Raniero doing here? From his point of vantage in a niche, Francesco regarded him with a puzzled air, in which there was hardly a trace of resentment of the injury he had so lately suffered at his hand. His fears were all for Ilaria, for he could no longer doubt that Raniero had sent for her, and he was resolved to be present at the meeting.