The Hill of Venus
pinnacle of a high resolve he but craved to escape unnoticed, unseen,
to be spared further humiliation.
Following a strange, inexplicable impulse, or seized with a sudden
irresistible panic, which mocked his intentions to scorn, he started
to retreat in an opposite direction, when a treacherous moonbeam
revealed him to the eye of Raniero Frangipani.
Two mighty bounds brought him to his side, and ere Francesco knew what
was happening, he found himself dragged over the greensward and stood
pale and trembling before the assembled company.
Conradino had paused precipitately, as if some bird of evil omen had
crossed his path. The others immediately surrounded Francesco, who was
writhing in the futile endeavor to release himself from the grip which
was upon him. In the struggle the cowl had dropped back, revealing
Francesco's features, set and deadly pale, and the cry: "A monk!" was
not for the cloth, but him it covered.
Two men had uttered it as with one voice, the Viceroy of Apulia and
the Count Palatine, while in the faces of their companions Francesco
read only loathing and hatred, such as any traitor would inspire.
The Frangipani released his victim with a reluctant scowl.
Conrad Capece seized Francesco by the shoulders and looked into his
face.
He felt moved despite himself by the expression of petrified grief
which he read in the face of the youth, who, unable longer to endure
the glances of hatred which he instinctively felt resting upon him,
had dropped his gaze.
"What is your purpose here?" the Apulian queried sternly.
Twice, in the thrall of conflicting emotions, Francesco started to
reply, a hot wave of shame chasing the pallor from his cheeks.
The words died on his lips.
At last, with a supreme effort, throwing back his head as in mute
defiance, he replied:
"My business is with the Pontiff!"
"The business of a traitor,--a spy!"
It was the voice of Raniero Frangipani that had fallen sharply on his
ear.
Francesco made no reply. Only he seemed to grow a shade more gray.
In his stead spoke Don Enrico, the Senator of Rome, who had stepped to
the Viceroy's side.
"It must have been known to you that the Pontiff has abandoned the
city and has fled to Viterbo. Do not try to deceive us! We shall find
means to learn the truth!"
The threatening tenor of the Spaniard's voice recalled Francesco to
himself. He turned to Capece who was regarding him gloomily.
"My lord, I have never spoken a falsehood. I arrived in Rome but
yesterday from Monte Cassino. Of the state of the city I knew nothing.
My business is with the Pontiff."
"Then why did you not depart on learning that Clement and the
Provencals have fled?"
A choking sensation came to Francesco. His hand went to his throat.
The Viceroy saw and understood.
With a sweep of the hand he bade the others stand aside.
"Go!"--The command was tinged with scorn and contempt.
"I vouch for this monk!" Francesco heard him address the Senator of
Rome, as with head bowed down he walked slowly away. But with a sharp
pang another voice smote his unwittingly listening ear.
"A renegade!"
It was the voice of Raniero Frangipani.--
On that night, when Francesco returned to the inn and had repaired to
his chamber, he lay on his bed without moving, without even thinking.
He had passed into a strange, half-apathetic state, in which his own
misery was hardly more to him than a dull and mechanical weight,
pressing on some wooden thing that had forgotten to be a soul.
In truth, it seemed of little consequence how all ended. The one thing
that mattered to any sentient being, was to be spared the unbearable
pain.
It seemed to him as if he had left some terrible shadow of himself,
some ghostly trail of his personality, to haunt the room. He sat
trembling and cowering, not daring to look up, lest he should see the
phantom presence of his other self.
At last the pain worked as its own anaesthetic.
Francesco's eyelids drooped and he fell into a deep and dreamless
sleep.
CHAPTER III
QUAINT WAYFARERS
Early on the following morning Francesco left Rome through the ancient
Flaminian gate and started upon his journey towards Viterbo.
It was a fair morning, golden and light.
Over the Campagna hung white mists, that hovered longest where the
Tiber rolled; but over the green mountains of Rocca Romana the woods
were alight with sunbeams and the glancing streams ran sparkling
through meadows, starred with dragon-flower and cyclamen, and shaded
with heavy boughs of beach and chestnut.
In lieu of following the Via Aurelia, where it wound towards the coast
by Santa Marinella and Santa Severa and mediaeval Palo, and the
volcanic soil and the steep ravines by Cervetri, where the long
avenues of cliff sepulchres are all that remain to show the site of
ancient Caere, Francesco pursued the beaten cattle-tracks, avoiding
the Maccarese marshes and following the course of the Aerone as far as
the high cliffs, up by forsaken Galera. And soon the downs and moors,
the tumuli and tombs and the heaving expanse of the Roman Campagna lay
behind him, and with them the fear of encountering roving companies of
Provencals, which might still remain in these regions.
It was a morning such as is only seen in Southern climes, and on
similar elevations; the air so pure and bright that every object
appeared translucent.
The valley into which Francesco descended, although partially veiled
in mists, began to disclose its variety and richness, contrasting
strangely with the undulating monotony of the Campagna, which lay
behind him. Little villages appeared, nestling on the craggy bases of
the mountains, castles and watch-towers rose on remote pinnacles;
forests of oak and pine waved freshly in the morning wind; pastures of
brightest emerald bordered the river; every rock displayed in its
nooks and crevices wild-flowers of brilliant hues; every breath wafted
across the vale brought new intoxicating odors.
The very cataract in the distance, though lost in snowy mists, wore a
diadem, a rainbow of palest pink and azure, like a semi-circular
spectral bridge.
Francesco chose the wider path, and lost himself in a tangled
underbrush of myrtle, stunted vines and high weeds, while the loftier
forest-trees continually showered their golden dew upon him, as he
passed under their odorous, lightly-swaying branches.
If the life at Monte Cassino had seemed hard and uneventful, these few
days in the larger, wider world had crowded experiences upon Francesco
with an impetuosity that had left him a little bewildered. Hungry for
a heart, his soul, bleeding under the leash of Fate, looked down upon
life as from an isolation, and found it as desolate and empty as the
most ascetic soul might have desired.
Heartening himself, he tried to see some reasonable purpose linking
all these happenings. He was being tempted and ill-used for the sake
of a finer patience and stronger discipline, serving his novitiate in
a rougher and more riotous house, meeting winds that had not reached
him behind the walls of Monte Cassino.
He had taken his discipline, his schooling and his vows as a matter
that was inevitable. But the lure of the outer world, combined with
the memories of the past, had thrummed incessantly and insistently
against the armor of his cowl.
And as, with the silence of a great resolve, he pushed slowly along
his solitary path, he wondered vaguely at the ultimate goal.
He had been taught that a monk should accept all the ordinances and
ask no questions, clasping an austere docility like a girdle about his
loins.
Nevertheless, his eyes lost their lustre, as he remembered the scenes
of the past night, and they fell into a vague brooding stare.
Yet he no longer felt angry with those who had turned from him in
disdain. For a time the fire in his heart had sunk too low even for
anger. He was dull and weary and a little stunned by the night's
bafflings, and the collapse of his resolves.
He was fighting against destiny, and the wave was mightier than the
vessel that had ventured upon it.
Francesco had started out before dawn, brushing the dew from the
meadow-grass and following the misty twilight track of a brook that
traced its serpentine course through the forest glades. The songs of
birds went throbbing through the woodland.
Francesco had come to a place where four ways met, with a stone cross
standing on a hillock, when out of the dusk of the forest aisles rode
the portly bulk of a man, who was hardly astir so early in order to
admire the beauties of the dawn, for he came along the greensward with
the gait of one who combines caution with alertness.
No sooner had the Duke of Spoleto laid eyes upon Francesco than he
broke out into a glad roar.
"Whither are you bound so lone and so early?" he bellowed after mutual
greeting. "Has the soil of Rome ignited under your holy feet?"
"I am bound for Viterbo," Francesco replied, glad to have the monotony
of the journey and the trend of his ruminations relieved by one who
had, at one time, been of such signal service to him.
"And whither do you travel?" he asked in turn.
"Every road leads to Rome, or the devil," the duke roared sagaciously,
"though three days of knight-errantry have brought nothing but
petticoats. The world is overburdened with women!"
Francesco nodded, although he was not sure of the fact.
Enlarging on the subject, as they rode side by side, the Duke of
Spoleto opined that women were capable of giving a deal of trouble.
Francesco considered the suggestion with due seriousness without
venturing an expression on the subject.
"You come from Rome?" the duke queried at last.
"The Ghibellines are in possession of the town," Francesco replied
with heavy heart.
The duke laughed.
"The spirit of chivalry runs counter to the growlings of the fathers,"
he said, then paused dramatically. "Anjou's name is a great and
stinking sore. The whole country holds its nose because of its stench.
As for him who succeeded the Cobbler's son in the chair of St.
Peter:--he has yet to learn that self-righteousness but needs the
devil's kiss on the forehead."
Francesco made no reply.
The Duke of Spoleto struck his fist into his palm.
"Meat, drink and the love of woman,--these things matter more than
Heaven and Hell and the solemn ravings of an ascetic though," he added
meditatively, "the holy fathers of the Church teach that woman is the
seed and core of all evil. Perchance we find therein the reason of
their own pitiable estate!"
Francesco remained silent for a space, and the duke gave him a queer
puzzled look.
"Look you," he said at last, picturesquely, "you seem not like other
monks, fit but to be made a mock of by sluts who are ready to laugh at
an ass' hind legs. That gentry I hate,--a mad medley of the devil."
The duke spat with emphasis and rubbed his palms.
Francesco ventured to enlighten the lord of the forests.
"Yet--may not one be as one standing on the threshold, with a light in
one's hand, illumining the path of others, yet remaining himself in
the gloom?"
The duke shrugged.
"Sophistry is the devil's pastime," he said dubiously. "Many an
old-established ghost there is, who has never seen such a thing as an
honest monk. And there is nothing that ghosts love as they do
novelties!"
Francesco pondered over the wisdom of his companion, but did not feel
called upon to enlarge upon it. He was even now far from convinced of
his own sincerity and steadfastness of purpose. He was as a man
shipwrecked on a stormy sea, ever rocking with the waves, with no
beacon-light beckoning him to shore.
"You have seen Conradino?" the duke said after a pause.
It might have been a statement, it might have been a question.
Francesco nodded.