The Hill of Venus
fixed upon his son with a pitiful look of pleading, which might do far
more than words, to prepare the youth's mind for such a thought.
Slowly, almost unconsciously, Francesco moved away from the bed. His
gaze wandered aimlessly about the room. His ideas refused to
concentrate themselves upon anything. It was too monstrous to
conceive! It was past belief, past understanding,--an ill-timed jest
perhaps--but yet a jest!
And he burst out with a laugh in which there was no thought of mirth.
"A monk!"
The old man regarded him anxiously.
"I did not jest!"
The laugh died to silence, then rose again in his throat, but
Francesco's eyes were terrible.
"Am I fitted for a monk?" he spoke at last. "You know what my life has
been. Have not you placed me in the sphere of the court, even ere I
had attained the power to think? How can I become a monk? What do I
know of the way of monks? What do I know of their lives? I must have
time to think!"
"There is no time," insisted the elder Villani, despair in his eyes.
"There is no time!" Francesco exclaimed aghast.
Then all the blood rushed to his heart.
"You mean that I am to decide, here and now?"
"Here and now!" came the low, inexorable voice.
The youth sprang from his seat.
"Then I say no,--no,--no!" he shouted, his eyes flashing fierce
determination from the pale face. "I am not fit to be a monk! I will
not be a monk! I am of the living,--I came for the sunlight, not the
shadow of the cloister! Never--never--never!"
A terrible, indefinable expression passed into the eyes of the sick
man. It passed out again, but the trace remained.
When he spoke again, his voice was weak, and there was a note in it of
despair.
"Deem you, that I have not thought of it, that I have not weighed in
the balance all your objections to the life of the cloister when I
asked this thing of you? You say you are of the court! You came for
the sunlight, not the shadow! What man does not! But you forget, there
is a force that shapes our ends,--you forget--your origin,--your
birth! I am your father and my sin is yours! We are both impure in the
sight of God! I have opened a means of salvation for both of us--the
Way of the Cross. A glorious way it is, for by it my soul shall belong
to you! In the sight of men you are as nothing! The blot of your birth
can never be effaced! But you are my son! Therefore, here on my
death-bed I command you to leave this world, that you may open the way
to another,--a better one,--to both of us,--to both of us,
Francesco,--to you and to me!"
There was a long silence between them, a silence of dread and
expectation for the one,--of fear and despair for the other.
At last Francesco raised his head.
"And she, whom I never knew,--she who was my mother," he asked
bitterly--"have you saved her soul? Or is that too left for me to do?"
"If prayers and penances avail, and masses untold,--her soul is in
Heaven! Yet--how do I know if the sacrifice availed?"
Francesco again relapsed into silence.
Out of the mist before his eyes there rose his own life. He saw its
shimmering past,--all the allurement for happiness it held out,--and
the dreary future decreed for him, to atone for another's sin.
"What is required to make a monk of me?" he queried with a dead voice.
"What cloister am I to enter?"
The sick man breathed quickly.
"All these matters have I arranged. From His Holiness himself have I
letters, sanctioning the matter. You will be given the right of
friar's orders that shall free you at times from the weariness and
monotony of the cloister. In all difficulties or troubles you will
appeal directly to the Pontiff! These privileges are great!"
"The Pontiff!" Francesco uttered with a start. "Pope Clement IV is the
mortal enemy of those to whom I have pledged my troth, to whom I owe
allegiance. I am a Ghibelline!" he concluded, as if struck by a new
thought. "I can never become a monk!"
For a moment the elder Villani lay silent, as if dazed by this sudden
unforeseen resistance. He forced himself to answer calmly and not to
betray his own misgivings.
"Your reasons are mere sophistry!" he said, after a brief pause. "Has
the party of Conradino the power to pave your way to Heaven,--to save
my soul from perdition? To insure your mother's eternal peace? Your
path lies henceforth with the Church, from which only my own
perverseness and blindness had severed you. For you henceforth there
are no commands save those of the Holy Father! What are Guelphs and
Ghibellines to you in this of all homes,--when I am lying at the door
of death?"
"They will look upon me as an ingrate, a renegade, a traitor,--and she
of all,--she--"
He covered his face with his hands.
"What say you?" asked his father drearily.
"Where am I to go?" came the monotonous response.
"You will repair to Monte Cassino, there to serve your novitiate. Your
time is to be shortened by special dispensation. At the end of that
period you will be called to Rome, to enter the Chapter House of the
Order of St. John. It holds out greater honor and privileges than any
in the world. You will take your orders directly from His Holiness.
The path to glory and to holiness lies open to you. Are you
satisfied?"
A moan came from Francesco's lips.
"My strength is failing,--your word,--to God!"
Francesco stood beside his father's death-bed, his arms hanging limply
by his side. His damp hair clung closely to his head. His eyes were
dull and unseeing.
Like a breath of the evening wind his youth had passed from him. His
gaze was not upon his father's face, but turned inwardly upon the
great aching void where his happiness had been.
When he spoke his words were low, his tone and his face alike without
expression.
"In the sight of God, I promise to become a monk!"
The old man, straining to catch the words, drank them into his soul.
His face relaxed. A sigh passed his lips. His failing strength had
apparently returned to him.
"You may call Fra Anselmo," he said gently. "But first, my son, kneel
to receive my blessing!"
Francesco stumbled blindly to the bedside and forced himself to kneel.
He shivered, as the sick man's hot, dry hand lay upon his hair, and
only by main force he restrained himself from crying out aloud.
Then the whispered phrase of the benediction fell meaningless upon his
ear:
"Pax tecum nunc et per omnia saecula,--Amen!"--
CHAPTER II
THE PLEDGE
In the antechamber of the elder Villani's sick-room, during the talk
between father and son, the monks had quietly waited the termination
of the interview. The Prior sat alone on a settle in a corner, his
tonsured head bent so low that his face was unreadable, while with
nervous fingers he stroked the cloth of his brown robe. One of the
monks was engaged in expounding some dogma to his companions who
obviously paid little heed to his words. A strange friar, who had on
the previous night arrived from Rome, sat with the confessor of San
Cataldo, but neither of them spoke. They, too, seemed to be listening
for the sound of footsteps in the corridor. The two mediciners, more
at ease, sat murmuring professionally between themselves, careless of
the mental unrest of their colleagues of the soul. None in the room,
save the strange friar, knew what the elder Villani was saying to his
son, but there were few even among these world-strange men who had not
guessed the truth long ago.
The minutes dragged. The floating wicks in the quaint stone lamps
wavered and flickered restlessly in their sconces, while the uneven
light from the cresset-lantern, hung in the centre of the chamber,
cast distorted shadows over floor and ceiling. To all present the wait
was tedious. To the strange friar whose eyes roamed ever again towards
the sick-chamber, it seemed interminable, and ever and anon the monk
at his side leaned uneasily towards him. "Gregorio Villani will find
the task no easy one. He had better left it to one of us!"
Nevertheless, when their wait was ended, and the leather hangings of
the door were raised by a white hand, all in the room were startled,
and gazed alert with wondering eyes, and lips on which the words had
died.
It was a strange apparition that entered. For a moment each was aware
of a slender figure which seemed to sway even as it grasped the
curtain, of a face ghastly white, framed in a wealth of dishevelled
hair, of a voice whose sound seemed but the hoarse whisper of a ghost,
as he staggered towards the strange friar.
"My father desires your presence."
The monk arose quickly, glancing furtively at the face of the youth,
then exchanging a swift glance with the Prior. At the same time one of
the mediciners started up.
With an unspoken "Not yet!" the Prior waved him back, and Francesco
followed the strange friar from the room.
A swift repugnance against his companion, seemingly born of the
moment, filled the youth, as side by side they traversed the short
passage-way. At the door of the sick-room, which they were about to
enter, the monk suddenly paused and turned.
"You have consented?" he whispered.
Francesco's lips formed an answer, barely audible, but which the monk
at his side caught at once.
Something akin to a look of involuntary admiration stole over his face
and something akin to a gleam of pity flickered in his eyes. The
admiration was for the mental powers of the elder Villani, which, it
seemed, not even approaching Death could vanquish. The fleeting pity
was for the son. But not unmingled with both was a look of triumph for
himself.
On entering the sick-room the monk stepped at once to the side of the
dying man. Gregorio Villani's cheeks were slightly flushed, his eyes
were brilliant, but his voice was weaker than it had been.
"Francesco has granted my last wish," he said, looking searchingly
into the friar's face. "Have you the briefs that are required for his
going?"
The friar produced a bundle from his cassock, which he placed on the
bed. Gregorio Villani took up the first scroll.
"To this one, containing the pledge, Francesco shall put his name," he
said, with a glance at his son. "The second is a letter from my own
hand, to the monastery and chapter, which His Holiness has decreed for
him. The third is the special dispensation, granting friar's order to
Francesco. Treasure it well, my son, for it will prove the greatest
boon of your life! And now, in presence of this witness, you shall
sign your pledge to me and to the Church!"
He looked imploringly at the youth, who stood by with pale face and
eyes from which every gleam of gladness had faded. When Francesco made
no reply, the strange monk stepped to a table on which there were
scattered sundry writing utensils, and dipping a pen in a composition
serving as ink, brought it to Francesco.
The latter stared for a moment from the friar to his father, his eyes
ablaze. Then he reached out, snatched the pen from the monk's hand and
dashed it on the floor.
"Does not my word suffice?" he spoke hoarsely, catching at his throat
like a drowning man.
"The flesh is weak and temptation ever near,"--the strange friar spoke
in the elder Villani's stead, as he picked up the pen with a sidelong
glance at the sick man. There was to be no hesitation, no wavering
now. The moment lost might never again return!
"You must sign the pledge," the sick man, turning to his son,
interposed tremulously. His own misgivings ran apace with those of the
strange monk.
Snatching the pen from the latter's hand, Francesco bent over the
scroll and scratched his name barbarously under the pledge. Then, from
his nerveless fingers, it dropped anew upon the floor.
The older man, who had been watching him narrowly, heaved a sigh of
relief.