The Hill of Venus
contained the remnants of a clear fluid. He picked it up and held it
to his nostrils. It fell from his nerveless fingers upon the stone and
broke into a thousand fragments, a thin stream creeping over the
granite towards the fallen dead. It was a preparation of hemlock and
bitter almonds. He stared aghast, afraid to move, afraid to call. The
nuns had poisoned themselves.
Like a madman he rushed out into the adjoining corridor, hither and
thither, in the frantic endeavor to find a trace of Ilaria. Yet not a
trace of her did he find. But what he did discover solved the mystery
of the grewsome feast of death which he had just witnessed. In a
corner where he had dropped it, there lay a silken banderol belonging
to a man-at-arms of Anjou's Provencals. They had been here, and the
nuns, to escape the violation of their bodies, had died, thus cheating
the fiends out of the gratification of their lusts.
The terrible discovery unnerved Francesco so completely that for a
time he stood as if turned to stone, looking about him like a
traveller who has stumbled blindly into a charnel house. Urged by
manifold forebodings, he then rushed from room to room, from cell to
cell. The same silence met him everywhere. Of Ilaria he found not a
trace. Had the fiends of Anjou carried her away, or had she, in
endeavoring to escape, found her death outside of the walls of San
Nicandro?
He dared not think out the thought.
The shadows of the place, the staring faces, the stiff hands clawing
at things inanimate, were like the phantasms of the night. Francesco
took the sea-air into his nostrils and looked up into the blue
radiance of the sky. All about him the garden glistened in the dawn;
the cypresses shimmered with dew. The late roses made very death more
apparent to his soul.
As he stood in deep thought, half dreading what he but half knew, a
voice called to him, breaking suddenly the ponderous silence of the
place. Guided by its sound, Francesco unlatched the door and found
himself face to face with the Duke of Spoleto.
For a moment they faced each other in silence.
Then he gave a great cry.
"Ever, ever night!" he said, stretching out his hands despairingly as
to an eternal void.
The duke's eyes seemed to look leagues away over moor and valley and
hill, where the blackened ruins of Astura rose beneath a dun smoke
against the calm of the morning sky.
A strange tenderness played upon his lips, as if with the extinction
of the Frangipani brood peace had entered his soul.
"A man is a mystery to himself," he said.
"But to God?"
"I know no God, save the God, my own soul! Let me live and
die,--nothing more! Why curse one's life with a 'to be?'"
Francesco sighed heavily.
"It is a kind of Fate to me!" he said, "inevitable as the setting of
the sun, natural as sleep. Not for myself do I fear it alone,--but I
should not like to think that I should never see her again."
The duke's eyes had caught life on the distant hillside, life surging
from the valleys, life and the glory of it. Harness, helm and shield
shone in the sun. Gold, azure, silver, scarlet were creeping from the
bronzed green of the wilds. Silent and solemn the host rolled slowly
into the full splendor of the day.
The duke's face had kindled.
"Grapple the days to come!" he said. "Let Scripture and ethics rot! My
men are at your command! Let them ride by stream and forest, moor and
mere! Let them ride in quest of your lost one, ride like the wind!"
Francesco looked at the duke through a mist of tears.
"You know?" he faltered.
"For this I came!" replied the duke, extending his hand. "You will
find her whom your heart seeks. Like a golden dawn shall she rise out
of the past. Blow your horn! Let us not tarry!"
CHAPTER VIII
THE ANCHORESS OF NARNI
Six days had passed. Once more the sun had tossed night from the sky
and kindled hope in the hymning east. The bleak wilderness barriered
by sea and crag had mellowed into the golden silence of the autumnal
woods. The very trees seemed tongued with prophetic flame. The world
leaped radiant out of the dawn.
Through the reddened woods rode Francesco, the Duke of Spoleto silent
by his side. Gloom still reigned on the pale, haggard face and there
was no lustre in the eyes that challenged ever the lurking shade of
Death. Six nights and six days had the quest been baffled. Near and
far armor glimmered in the reddened sanctuaries of the woods. Not a
trumpet brayed, though a host had scattered in search of a woman's
face.
On the seventh day, the trees drew back before Francesco where the
shimmering waters of the Nera streaked the meads. Peace dwelled there
and calm eternal, as of the Spirit that heals the throes of men. Rare
and golden lay the dawn-light on the valleys. The songs of the birds
came glad and multitudinous as in the burgeoning dawn of a glorious
day.
Francesco had halted under a great oak. His head was bare in the
sun-steeped shadows, his face was the face of one weary with long
watching under the voiceless stars. Great dread possessed him. He
dared not question his own soul.
A horn sounded in the woods, wild, clamorous and exultant. It was as
the voice of a prophet, clearing the despair of a godless world. Even
the trees stood listening. Far below, in the green shadows of the
valley, a horseman spurred his steed.
Francesco's eyes were upon him. Yet he dared not hope, gripped by a
great fear.
"I am even as a child," he said.
The duke's lips quivered.
"The dawn breaks,--the night is past. Tidings come to us. Let us ride
out!"
Francesco seemed lost in thought. He bowed his head and looked long
into the valley.
"Am I he who slew Raniero Frangipani?"
"Courage!" said the duke.
"My blood is as water, my heart as wax. Death and destiny are over my
head!"
"Speak not to me of destiny and look not to the skies! I have closed
my account with Heaven! In himself is man's power! You have broken the
crucifix! Now trust your own soul. So long as you did serve a
superstition had you lost your true heaven!"
"And yet--"
"You have played the god, and the Father in Heaven must love you for
your strength! God does not love a coward! He will let you rule your
destiny--not destiny your soul!"
"Strange words--"
"But true! Were I God, should I love the monk puling prayers in a den?
Nay--that man should I choose who dared to follow the dictates of his
own soul and strangle Fate with the grip of truth. Great deeds are
better than mumbled prayers!"
The horseman in the valley had swept at a gallop through a sea of
sun-bronzed fern. His eyes were full of a restless glitter, as the
eyes of a man, whose heart is troubled. He sprang from the saddle,
and, leading his horse by the bridle, bent low before the twain.
"Tidings, my lord!"
"I listen!"--
The horseman looked for a moment in Francesco's face but, hardened as
he was, he dared not abide the trial. There was such a stare of
desperate calm in the dark eyes, that his courage failed and quailed
from the truth. He hung his head and stood mute.
"I listen--"
"My lord--"
"For God's sake, speak out!"
"My lord--"
"The truth!"--
"She lives--"
A great silence fell within the hearts of the three, an ecstasy of
silence, such as comes after the wail of a storm. The duke's lips were
compressed, as if he feared to give expression to his feelings.
Francesco's face was as the face of one who thrusts back hope out of
his soul. He sat rigid on his horse, a stone image fronting Fate,
grim-eyed and steadfast. All his life had been one long sacrifice, one
long denial,--had it all been in vain?
There were tears in the eyes of the man-at-arms.
"What more?"
The horseman leaned against his horse, his arm hooked over its neck.
He pointed to the valley.
"Yonder lies Narni. Beyond the Campanile of St. Juvenal is a
sanctuary. You can see it yonder by the ford. Two holy women dwell
therein. To them, my lord, I commend you!"
"You know more!"
The voice that spoke was terrible.
"Spare me, my lord! The words are for women's lips, not for mine!"
"So be it!"
The three rode in silence, Francesco and the duke together, looking
mutely into each other's face. Francesco's head was bowed to his
breast. The reins lay loose on his horse's neck.
A gray cell of roughly hewn stone showed amidst the green boughs
beyond the water. At its door stood a woman in a black mantle. A cross
hung from her neck and a white kerchief bound her hair. She stood
motionless, half in the shadow, watching the horsemen as they rode
down to the rippling fords.
Autumn had touched the sanctuary garden, and Francesco's eyes beheld
ruin as he climbed the slope. The woman had come from the cell, and
now stood at the wicket-gate with her hands folded as if in prayer.
The horseman took Francesco's bridle. The latter went on foot alone to
speak with the anchoress.
"My lord," she said, kneeling at his feet, "God save and comfort
you!"--
The man's brow was twisted into furrows. His right hand clasped his
left wrist. He looked over the woman's head into the woods, and
breathed fast through clenched teeth.
"Speak!" he said.
"My lord, the woman lives!"
"I can bear the truth!"
The anchoress made the sign of the cross.
"She came to us here in the valley, my lord, tall and white as a lily,
her hair loose upon her neck. Her feet were bare and bleeding, her
soles rent with thorns. And as she came, she sang wild snatches of a
song, such as tells of love, and of Proserpina, Goddess of Shades. We
took her, my lord, gave her meat and drink, bathed her torn feet, and
gave her raiment. She abode with us, ever gentle and lovely, yet
speaking like one who had suffered, even to the death. And yet,--even
as we slept, she stole away from us last night, and now is gone!"--
The woman had never so much as raised her eyes to the man's face. Her
hands held her crucifix, and she was ashen pale, even as new-hewn
stone.
"And is this all?"
The man's voice trembled in his throat. His face was terrible to
behold in the sun.
"Not all, my lord!"
"Say on!"
The anchoress had buried her face in her black mantle. Her voice was
husky with tears.
"My lord, you seek one bereft of reason!"
"Mad!"
"Alas!"
A great cry came from Francesco's lips.
"My God! This, then, is the end!"
CHAPTER IX
THE DAWN
An undefined melancholy overshadowed the world. Autumn breathed in the
wind. The year, red-bosomed, was rushing to its doom.
On the summit of a wood-crowned hill, rising like a pyramid above moor
and forest, stood two men silent under the shadows of an oak. In the
distance glimmered the sea, and by a rock upon the hillside, armed
men, a knot of spears, shone like spirit sentinels athwart the west.
Mists were creeping up the valleys, as the sun went down into the sea.
A few sparse stars gleamed out like souls still tortured by the
mysteries of life. An inevitable pessimism seemed to challenge the
universe, taking for its parable the weird afterglow of the west.
Deep in the woods a voice sang wild and solitary in the gathering
gloom. Like the cry of a ghost, it seemed to set the silence
quivering, the leaves quaking with windless awe. The men who looked
towards the sea heard it, a song that echoed in the heart like woe.
The duke pointed into the darkening wood.
"Trust your own heart: self is the man! Through a mistaken sense of
duty have you been brought nigh unto death and despair! Trust not in
sophistry: the laws of men are carven upon stone, the laws of Heaven
upon the heart! Be strong! From henceforth, scorn mere words! Trample
tradition in the dust! Trust yourself, and the God in your heart!"
The distant voice had sunk into silence. Francesco listened for it
with hands aloft.