The Hill of Venus
Benevento, the luckless Helena, Manfred's Queen. A fatal resemblance
to one, known to have been entrusted with a similar task, had caused
the swift issuance of the death-warrant on the part of Anjou's
procurator, a sentence which no denial on his part would have
suspended or annulled, as, incensed at Francesco's bearing and
demeanor, he of the Leaden Lamb had remorselessly consigned him to his
fate. And, but for his timely arrival and speedy intervention, and the
vigorous protests with which the monk supported his claim of
Francesco's innocence, the latter's fate would have been hopelessly
sealed.
Francesco, partaking of the viands the monk had placed before him,
listened attentively, while the friar assisted him, for as yet he
could barely make use of his arms and hands, cut and bruised as they
were from the cords of the Provencals.
The abuse and the insults to which he had been subjected since his
arrival at Benevento, and the dire peril from which he had so narrowly
escaped, had exasperated Francesco to a degree, that he was trembling
in every limb with the memory of the outrage, and he vowed a heavy
reckoning against the fiend who, unheard and untried, would have sent
him to an ignominious death. Thereupon the friar informed him, that
the Provencals had departed shortly after he had been released from
his prison, and exhausted, Francesco fell back among the cushions into
a deep and dreamless slumber, while the friar resumed his office of
watchfulness by his bedside.
He awoke strengthened, and, save for the bruises testifying to his
treatment at the hands of the Provencals, his splendid youth swiftly
re-asserted itself. It suffered him no longer within the ominous
confines of the Witches' City.
Heedless of the friar's protests, who declared that he was not strong
enough to continue his journey, he summoned the Calabrian landlord
whose deferential demeanor, when he entered Francesco's presence, was
at marked variance with his conduct on the previous night.
After having paid his reckoning and secured his steed, Francesco
thanked the friar for his intervention on his behalf, then, with some
difficulty, he mounted and rode out of the gates of Benevento, without
as much as looking back with a single glance upon the city's ominous
walls.
CHAPTER IV
PROSERPINA
Francesco arrived at Avellino at dusk. It was the hour when the castle
courtyard was comparatively deserted. Only two bow-men guarded the
lowered drawbridge, and they paid little heed to the familiar form of
the youth as he slowly rode through the gate.
Throwing the reins of his steed to an attendant, Francesco dismounted
and entered the castle, undecided what to do first. Seeing a page
lounging in the hallway, he inquired if the Viceroy was in his
apartments.
"He returned from the falcon hunt at dusk and has retired," came the
response.
"Go, ask him if he will receive me," Francesco entreated,
heavy-hearted.
The page bowed and ran up the winding stairway, leaving Francesco to
wait in the hall below.
Presently he returned.
"The serving-man in my lord's antechamber has orders that my lord is
to be disturbed by no one, since he is preparing for his departure on
the morrow--"
"For his departure?"
The page eyed Francesco curiously, as if he wondered at his ignorance
of that which was on the lips of all the court.
"You have not heard?"
"I have just returned to Avellino,--from a mission," he replied,
avoiding the inquisitive gaze he knew to be upon him.
"Then you know not that King Conradino has crossed the Alps? The court
departs on the morrow to join him before the walls of Pavia!"
Francesco's hand had gone to his head.
"Conradino has crossed the Alps?" he spoke as out of the depths of a
dream.
"I will see the Viceroy on the morrow!"
Leaving the page to gaze after him in strange wonderment, Francesco
went slowly towards the stairs. He shrank unspeakably from
explanations and scenes of farewell. At the idea of pity and amazement
which his fate might call up, he fairly shuddered. Perhaps there might
be even sneers from his companions. And, by the time he had reached
his own chamber, he was debating the possibility of departing as if
for a journey with excuses to none save his liege lord, the Viceroy of
Apulia.
Upon a wooden settle in his chamber, with the moonbeams pouring down
from the window above it, he seated himself, and his heart beat up in
his throat.
If it were true! If the ecstatic dream of his life might be realized!
If face to face he might meet Conradino, the imperial youth, the
rightful heir and ruler of these enchanting Southlands which smarted
under Anjou's insufferable yoke!
How often had that fair-haired youth, gazing with longing eyes towards
the Land of Manfred from the ramparts of his castle in the distant
Tyrol, been the topic of converse at Avellino. His very name had
kindled a holy flame in every heart. At his beck, the beck of the last
of the Hohenstauffen, Ghibelline Italy would fly to arms as one man.
Had the hour come at last?
A cold hand suddenly clutched his heart.
What was it to him? What was anything to him now? What right had he to
enter the lists of those who would flock to the banners of the
imperial youth? Had he not, from the day of his birth, forfeited the
right to live and to act according to the dictates of his own heart?
While they fought he must look on, bound foot and hand, an enemy to
the cause which was his cause. An involuntary groan broke from his
lips.
Too late--too late!
He arose, and, opening a chest in the wall of his chamber, Francesco
took from it a faded flower wrapped in its now dry cloth. The former
scarlet glory was gone, the petals were purple and old. He recalled
the joy with which he had received it. A week ago he would have
proclaimed it to all the world. Now the rose and his life were alike.
Now he was conscious only of a sickening, benumbing bitterness of
spirit, as he laid the faded flower tenderly into its former place.
Then, lighting a cresset lantern in a niche in the wall, he turned
away to look through his possessions, to pack what little he might
take with him on the morrow. And the first necessity which came to his
hand was a small, sharp, jewel-hilted dagger,--Ilaria's gift.
From without the encircling gardens of the castle there came strange
sounds of laughter and merriment which struck Francesco with a deeper
pang. For a time he resumed his seat and, with hands clasped round his
knees, stared in immobile despair into the darkness. Eventually, the
oppression of his mind becoming well-nigh unbearable, and, knowing
that sleep would not come to him in his present overwrought state,
Francesco arose and strayed out into the dimly lighted corridor, until
he emerged on a terrace, whence a flight of broad marble stairs
conducted to the rose-garden below. Beyond, a pile of gray buildings,
rising among thickly wooded hills, was barely discernible in the misty
moonlight. A fault breeze, blowing up from the gardens, bathed him in
the fragrance of roses. He shuddered. From below where he stood came
the sound of laughing voices.
Francesco peered down eagerly into the rose-garden, girdled by the
wall of the terrace, on the summit of which he stood. The bushes were
heavy with blossoms; they drooped over the white sand-strewn walk,
even beneath the occasional shadow of a slender cypress that seemed to
pierce the violet of the night-sky. They clambered up the sides of the
fortress villa, and mingled with the ivy on the opposite sweep of the
wall.
The garden was flooded with that golden moonlight which creates in the
beholder the illusion of unreality; for not in the midnight dark, but
where radiance is warmest and intensest, are spirits most naturally
expected by the sensitive mind.
Where the light of the moon was most translucent, there stood a man in
the mythical garb of Hermes, catching therein the full moon glamour.
As he looked up he met the gaze of Francesco.
"Come down, Francesco," he cried in comical despair. "Despite my
winged feet I cannot pull the car of Amor, and he refuses to use his
wings!"
A strange light leaped into Francesco's eyes.
"Why not summon Pluto, God of the Underworld?"
"He declines to waive his right to march beside Proserpina, and you
know the Frangipani is quite capable of making a quarrel out of a
revel."
"And who is Proserpina?"
"Ilaria Caselli."
"Who calls me?" a voice at this moment spoke from the thicket, and ere
either could answer a girlish figure stepped into the moonlight,
paused and looked in amaze at Francesco.
The latter exchanged a few words with his companion who bowed and
withdrew.
Slowly she moved towards the terrace; lithe and languid, she seemed
herself the Queen of Blossoms, her dusky hair, flower-crowned,
enveloped in rainbow bloom.
"Francesco!" she called, surprise and appeal in her tone. "I knew not
you were here! Come down!"
"Yes,--Ilaria," he said, yet stood at gaze and made no sign to stir.
The light in his eyes had died. She stood below him, half in the
light, half in the shadow, her neck and throat bare, her arms in tight
sleeves of flower-embroidered gauze.
"Come down!" she called more imperiously. "Why do you delay?"
He moved round the wall to the descending stair and presently was by
her side.
"When did you return?" she asked, extending her hands to him.
He took them, pressed them fervently in his own, then, bending over
them, kissed them passionately.
"Within the hour," he replied, his eyes in hers.
"And your mission?"
"It is accomplished!"
"I am glad," she said, and saw not the look of anguish that passed
over his face. "I came to ask you," her bosom was heaving strangely,
"to be near me when the pageant breaks. I am afraid of Raniero
Frangipani!"
"Yet you chose the role of Proserpina, knowing--" He broke off, a
shiver of constraint in his voice.
"Who told you?"
He pointed in the direction where his informant had disappeared.
"Messer Gualtiero! You knew," he then continued slowly, "that Raniero
would be your companion in the pageant!"
Ilaria pouted.
"Mine is the part of Lady of Sorrows--Queen of the Underworld!"
"And the Frangipani's society is the price you pay for your high
estate."
She looked at him, then dropped her eyelids on a sudden.
"Why should I fear, when you are by?"
Something clutched at Francesco's throat.
"I may not always be near you!"
She arched her eyebrows.
"Then I must look for another protector!" she retorted with a shrug.
Noting the pain her words gave him, she added more softly:
"You will not leave me again?"
"You shrink from the Frangipani," he replied, ignoring her question.
"Has he insulted you? Is he your enemy?"
"It is not because he is an enemy, but rather the opposite, that I
would avoid Raniero Frangipani," was her low reply.
All the color had faded from Francesco's lips.
"You mean--" the words died in the utterance.
"He wooes me!" she said low.
A fierce light leaped into Francesco's eyes. She laid a tranquillizing
finger on his arm.
"You have no cause for wrath, that I can see! And yet I would rather
have you near than far. The Frangipani is filled with violent
passions. He wooes me violently. Since you left Avellino," she added
with seeming reluctance, "he seems to have taken new courage,
and--some unexplained umbrage at--I know not what! 'Who is this
Francesco Villani?' he said to me and his eyes glowered. 'What is his
ancestry? What should entitle him to your regard?' Again and again he
dwelled on this point,--Francesco,--you know I love you,--and I care
not,--so you love me,--but you will tell me,--that I may silence
him,--Francesco,--will you not?"
A shadow as from some unseen cloud swept over his face.