The Hill of Venus
massive head. The eyes were bead-like, bright as polished steel. The
brows met in a straight black line over the nose.
"My Lord Frangipani--"
The Lord of Astura turned. Don Enrico presented him to the King of the
Germans. Conradino extended his hand.
"We are well pleased to count you among our loyal friends and
adherents, my Lord Frangipani," Conradino said with warmth. "Our
illustrious grandsire himself has bestowed upon you the insignia of
knighthood; it is a tie which should bind us for aye and ever!"
The Frangipani grasped the proffered hand, bending low as he replied:
"I count it great honor that King Conradino acknowledges the bonds
which bind the house of Frangipani to the house of Swabia. May I be
afforded the opportunity to prove my devotion towards the grandson of
my glorious emperor!"
While Conradino's gaze was resting upon the Lord of Astura, there came
to him a sensation, strange as it was fleeting.
He felt singularly repelled by the voice and glance of the baron,
notwithstanding the latter having received his schooling at the
brilliant court of Emperor Frederick at Castel Fiorentino.
In order to overcome this sensation, Conradino turned to the Roman.
"You are the Lord of Astura," he said. "I have been told your castello
defends the coast!"--
"Some fifty leagues to southward, Astura rises sea-washed upon its
impregnable rock!" Giovanni Frangipani replied, not without
self-conscious pride. "Corsairs and Saracens have dashed themselves in
vain against its granite walls. The bulwark of Terra di Lavoro, I hold
castello and port as hereditary fief of Emperor Frederick!"
"A port and castello near Rome!" Conradino said with a quick lift of
speech. "My imperial grandsire did well to entrust them to so faithful
a subject. Who knows but that at some day I too shall embark at
Astura?"
He spoke the fateful words and shivered.
It was as if the cold air of a burial vault had fanned his cheeks.--
Impelled hither by a force beyond his control, Francesco instinctively
shrank from mingling with the festive crowds. The one desire of his
life fulfilled, to see face to face Conradino, the idol of his
youthful dreams, he would take his weary feet away and continue upon
his journey towards an unknown destiny.
Opposing thoughts were flying towards contrary poles of his horizon.
On the one hand, the old longing for the world, a world of action, had
risen strangely from forgotten depths. Was this perchance the goal to
which his present life was leading? In the midst of his ruminations he
heard the silvery mirth of Ilaria from the depths of the gardens, and
the pain itself seemed to guide his steps towards her. He had always
thought her the most beautiful of all beautiful women, though with
them Italy blossomed as a garden.
He again remembered the night he first saw her, how the exquisite
purity of her face distinguished her from the glittering throng among
which she moved. He even remembered now in what graceful folds her
white robe fell from the square cut neck to her feet, how the
over-sleeves hung open from the shoulders, revealing the snowy
whiteness of her arms.
He remembered how that night he had refused to go singing carnival
songs with the youths of the court; how they, heated with wine, had
jeered and taunted him, asking if, perchance, he was turning into a
pious monk.
Suddenly in his waking dream he found himself at Monte Cassino in the
cell of the Prior. And the Prior talked and talked about the sins of
the world, and the lust of the flesh, and of prayers and penances.
How, as he sat there in grim silence, the Prior thought he was
listening, instead of thinking of a smile of divine sweetness, and a
fairer face than that of the Virgin looking out at him from the mural
painting of Masaccio. And how the Prior would have crossed himself and
implored protection from the snares of Satan, had he known that
Francesco's thoughts were of a woman. How, when he went to his own
cell that night, when he lay down on the bare hard boards, that served
for bed and pillow, a swift revulsion of feeling had come over him.
At that moment Francesco felt that, wherever he went, he would bear
his shadow with him none the less surely, because its presence might
be hidden by the general negative of that sunlight, which so
inexorably illumined every detail of the road that lay before him.
The shadow!
Was he indeed a living soul created in the image of his Maker, or an
echo merely shouted by some fiend in derision, destined to wander
forever disconsolate among the waste places, seeking and finding
not?--
Now he saw Ilaria come up the moonlit path.
For a moment he wavered, trembling in every limb. Then the memory of
their meeting at the fountain swept over him in a mighty wave. He
called to mind the sweet smile of long ago, the touch of her hands.
No longer master of his feelings, he took a step forward, his eyes,
straining into the night, riveted upon her. There was a hint of
melancholy in the curve about the mouth and the farseeing eyes.
Another moment and he found himself face to face with Ilaria Caselli.
As she noted the shadow across her path, she paused sharply, then, as
their eyes met, he saw the flowing motion of her figure stiffening
into curves that lent a suggestion of resistance. He caught the
momentary impatience of her brow and the start of resentment in her
eyes.
His purpose vanquished, he stood mute in the face of the striking
chill of her pride.
For a moment they regarded each other in silence, a silence that
resembled the settling waters after the plunging of a stone.
Her face was very white, and her eyes, as they met his, shone with an
almost supernatural lustre.
Yet this silence was putting the two asunder, contrasting them
vividly, balancing them one against the other.
The repose and the self-confidence ran all towards the woman.
Her face waited.
She seemed to look down from above on Francesco the monk.
A moment ago he had had so much to say, and now his own voicelessness
begot anger and rebellion.
Ilaria was looking at him, as if she saw something, and nothing, and
Francesco felt that her eyes called him a fool. Her air of aloofness,
as of standing above some utterly impersonal matter, put the man under
her feet.
She could not have trampled upon him more victoriously than by
displaying the utter indifference with which she seemed to rediscover
his existence.
For a moment, that seemed interminable, they stood at gaze, as if some
hidden hand had been laid upon them, arresting every movement.
Then her lips parted slightly.
"Faithless!"
Then she was gone.--
How long Francesco remained rooted to the spot, he did not know.
He felt as one who has walked into a place, where all the doors were
closed, where calm, contemptuous faces were watching him from the
windows.
His chief desire now was to get away from Rome as quickly as possible.
The Pontiff was at Viterbo. Thither he would travel with the dawn. He
was tired of humiliations. Restless and baffled though he felt in his
effort to conform his thoughts to the life he was henceforth to lead,
he resented even compassion.
The moon had risen higher and the sky was sprinkled with myriads of
stars.
Francesco stood leaning against the fountain, and heard the bells on
distant Aventine tolling through the night. Their music filled the
air. He tried to hush the anxiety of his heart by prayer. It was in
vain.
He felt the love for the friends of his youth turning slowly into
hate. Once again he had proved himself, once again he had been
crucified on the altar of Duty!
Let the stormy billows of life then sweep him onward to whatever
destiny a dark fate had consigned him! Since loyalty had proved his
undoing, why cling to outward show?--
How perfect was the night!
The distant hillsides were hushed. The very leaves were still. The
olive woods shone silvery in the moonlight!
The splashing of the fountains came clear to him in the intense
stillness. In the moonlight the roses were nodding to each other and
the perfume of magnolias permeated the balmy night air. Farther in the
shade he could see the Lucciola, in whose heart were hidden the
love-words caught from lovers' lips,--what a mission for a flower! On
the highroad he heard the tramp of horses' feet. They came nearer,
stopped, then died away in the distance.
Afraid even to move Francesco peered through the leaves.
But the only sound he could hear was the beating of his own heart.
He stood alone in the garden.
Love seemed to have died out of the eyes of life, and the world seemed
to shiver in disillusionment.
A great weariness came to him, a weariness of the heart, spreading
with the swiftness of poison in the blood. His head drooped, as if the
moonlight had wilted the strong neck. His eyes lost their lustre of
haughtiness and fell into a vague, brooding stare. He was dull and
weary; but yesterday he had thought well of the world; there seemed
nor valor, nor pity, anywhere.--
Yet Francesco felt that this state could not endure.
Purposeless he had drifted on the waves of destiny, the blind victim
of another's will. Prayers and penances had not availed to rouse him
to the acceptance of his fate.
There must be something to fill out his life, some great palpable
purpose to which he would devote himself, some high mission, in the
fulfilment of which the consciousness of a false existence would
become gradually blurred, and eventually wiped out.
His whole nature craved for action; the still life of the cloister,
far from extinguishing the smouldering fire, had kept it alive with
the fuel of dead hopes and broken ambitions.
What mattered it in the end in whose cause he fought and bled, so he
came out from under the dreary cloud of passive endurance, a slow
paralysis of all that was best of him?
His love for Ilaria had remained with him, had haunted him all these
long and weary months. He felt it would remain with him forever, even
though he banished her image from his heart. And banish it he must! He
must shake off the dreamer, he must look life in the face. Boldly he
must enter the arena in the unequal fight.
"Ave Domina, morituri te salutant!"--
The thought seemed to give him back some of his former elasticity. All
wavering was at an end. The road seemed dark. Yet there must be a way.
Could he but accomplish some great deed, could he but make a name for
himself, but prove himself worthy of the love she bore him
once,--that, at least, would be atonement!
A higher light gleamed in Francesco's eyes, and he heaved a great sigh
as he was about to step into the clearing, when the sound of
approaching footsteps caused him to pause and listen.
They seemed to come in his direction.
In the brilliant moonlight he recognized Conradino and Frederick of
Austria, Conrad Capece and the brothers Lancia. They had been making
the rounds of the gardens and were returning to the palace. In the
gaunt warrior who followed in their wake he recognized the Count
Palatine.
Where the glistening gravel paths branched off, leading into different
parts of the blossoming wilderness, they were joined by another group.
Francesco recognized among them Raniero Frangipani, and the ground
began to burn under his feet.
A thousand invisible eyes seemed to peer at him in his concealment; a
thousand invisible fingers seemed to point towards him,--the
renegade.
They were coming nearer. Now he could hear the sound of their voices.
There was no further doubt; they were coming in his direction.
It was too late to retrace his steps. If he remained where he stood,
they might pass him unheeded, unseen. At this moment Francesco dreaded
even the sound of a human voice, the sight of a human face. On the