The Hill of Venus
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.