The Hill of Venus 14Book the Second · The Duke of Spoleto
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Literature · Historical Fiction
The Hill of Venus 14
Book the Second · The Duke of Spoleto
GallizierEnglish
Francesco, having spent the night at a wayside inn, was astir with the breaking of the dawn. He saddled and bridled his horse for the day's journey, and having paid his reckoning, set his face to the west. The grass was drenched with dew, the woods towered heavenward with a thousand golden peaks, while down in the valley a rivulet echoed back the light, chanting sonorously as it leaped over the moss-grown boulders in its narrow bed.
Francesco was very solemn about the eyes that morning. He looked as one who had aged years in one night, and strove with might and main to forget the past. He watched the sun climb over the leafy hills of Velletri, saw the fleecy morning clouds sail through the heavens, heard the thunder of the streams. There was life in the day and wild love in the woods. Yet from the world of passion and delight he was an exile, rather a pilgrim, therein fettered by a heavy vow. He was to bear the Grail of Love through all these wilds, yet might never look thereon, or quench his thirst.
Through all the heavy morning hours Francesco fought and struggled with his youth. Ilaria's image floated by his side, robed in crimson and gold, her hair dazzled him more than the noon-day brightness of the sun. As for her eyes, he dared not look therein, but the disdainful laughter of her lips still echoed in his heart. The silence of the woods had bewitched his soul.
The towers and turrets of Camaldoli had faded behind him in the steely blue. On the distant horizon Tivoli towered ensconced among her cypress-groves. To northward the woods bristled under the relentless gleam of the sun, a glitter like blackened steel under a summer sky. The road wound under ancient trees. Many a huge ilex cast its gloom over the grass. The stone pine towered on the hills, above dense woods of beech and chestnut, and the valleys were full of primeval oaks, whose sinewy limbs stretched far over the sun-streaked sward.
As for Francesco, his mood partook of the silence of the hills. As the sun rode higher in the heavens, he came to a wilder region. A desolate valley opened gradually before him, steeped on every side with the black umbrage of the woods. A wind had arisen, brisk and eager as a blithe breath from the sea, and cloud shadows raced athwart the emerald dells.
Lost in reveries of the past, and brooding over what the times to come might hold for him, Francesco trotted on through a grove of birches, whose filmy foliage arabesqued the heavens. A glade opened to the road below. All around him were tall hills deluged with green woods. A stream glittered through the flats under elms and drooping willows.
Suddenly a half-score of mounted men rounded the angle of the road. They sighted the solitary traveller. At once they were at full gallop over the grass, swords agleam, lances pricking the blue, while the hot babel of their tongues echoed from the valley. Francesco, with a grim twist of the mouth, heeled on his horse and took to the woods.
The great trees overarched him, beams of gold came slanting through. The grass was a deep green under the purple shadows. Through the silence came the dull thunder of hoofs as the men cantered on, swerving and blundering through the trees. They rode faster than Francesco upon his tired steed, and the distance dwindled between the pack and the chase.
Onward Francesco fled. The black boughs grazed his head, the tree-trunks seemed to gallop in the gloom. He could see steel flashing through the wood, like meteorites plunging through a cloud.
Yet he hardly so much as turned his head, for his eyes were piercing the shadows before him. As he swayed along, he now heard a great trampling of hoofs in the woods. The nearest galloper swung out from the gloom. He was leaning over the neck of his horse, his lips parted over his teeth, his sword poised from his outstretched arm. The sword circled over Francesco's head, its whistling breath fanning his hair. He cowered; his horse swerved aside. The horse of his assailant stumbled over a projecting tree stump, hurling its rider over its head some six feet away upon the ground, where he lay stunned, dropping his sword in his fall. Like lightning Francesco leaped from his saddle, picked up the weapon, and remounted, just in time to ward off a vicious blow aimed at his head from a second horseman who had plunged from the thickets.
Francesco's early training served him well and proved his foe's undoing. Drawing up his horse on sluthering hoofs he faced the second assailant. Their swords whimpered, screamed and clashed. Francesco's blade struck the man's throat through. Catching his upreared shield as he fell, he tore it from its supporting arm, just as two more horsemen blundered out of the gloom. They sighted the horseless steed, the dead man on the ground; they saw the monk with sword and shield, and paused for a moment staggered at the uncommon sight.
Francesco, profiting by their panic, twisted tighter the strapping of his shield, and with sword circling over his head pushed his horse to a gathering gallop down the hill. But his assailants had recovered from their sudden paralysis. Swerving right and left, they dashed down the glade in hot pursuit. Gaining on him from all sides, his fate seemed to be sealed, when directly across Francesco's path there rode leisurely out of the gloom of the forest a score or more of individuals, mounted on steeds well suited to the riders, the like of which in point of incongruity of garb and appearance he had never before beheld.
One wore a cuirass of plaited gold, beneath which was visible a shirt of coarsest hemp, and two dirty bare legs. Another had a monk's capote tied about his neck with silver links, like jewels in a swine's snout, while his carcass was encased in a leather jerkin. A third was covered with the skin of a wolf, and a fourth wore that of a mountain lion. Antler's horns protruded from the chain-mail skull-cap of a fifth; a sixth carried a round shield, covered with raw-hide, and a spear. So motley was the array and so fantastic the appearance of the newcomers, that one might have taken them for a band of souls turned out of purgatory, who, on returning to earth, had robbed a pawn shop to cover their nakedness.
But he who in point of portliness and bulk would at once have been acknowledged as the one in authority, a stout and herculean being, swaying upon an antediluvian steed, with a helmet upon his head resembling a huge iron cask, now hove into sight, like some portly Pan bestriding a Centaur. He was of exceeding bulk, with a flaming red beard and small, close-set eyes. His sword-belt would have girdled two common men's loins. His arms had the appearance of two clubs. A great slit of a mouth, under a bristling mustachio, revealed two rows of teeth, large and strong as a boar's; a double chin flapped to and fro with the motion of the steed, around which his legs curved like the staves of a cask.
Being unable to check the speed of his horse in the steep downward grade of the glen, Francesco was hurled almost bodily into the very midst of this fantastic array, not knowing whether he had escaped one foe but to encounter another, or whether there was salvation for him in the appearance of this strange throng.
The sight of a monk racing at breakneck speed down the glade, swinging aloft a blood-stained sword and riding as one born in the saddle, for a moment staggered even the nondescripts and their leader. But, with eyes blinking under their penthouses of fat, the latter had at a glance taken in the situation. A signal,--and a whirlwind seemed to fill the emerald gloom. The wood grew alive with shouting and the noise of hoofs. Their number compelled Francesco to wheel about and face his pursuers, as those to whom he trusted for his safety completely choked up the gorge.
His assailants had come to a sudden halt, as they found themselves face to face with this fantastic array, outnumbering their own some ten to one. They seemed to wait the command of their leader, who had, in the meantime, come up, bestriding a black stallion, a white plume upon his helmet, and upon his shield and breastplate the armorial bearings of some great feudal house, the emblem of the Broken Loaf.
The giant of the woods reined in his elephantine steed within a few paces of Francesco's pursuers and waved his chubby arm, as if he bade them welcome.
"What ho, gentles!" he roared with a voice like a mountain cataract, while the fingers of his left hand played with the hilt of his huge sword. "What is the sport? Pray, let us too share in your pastime! Six to one--and he of friar's orders--we take the weaker side!"
"Insolent! Know you to whom you speak?" shouted the leader of the men-at-arms. "The monk is our prisoner! Stand back--at your peril!"
"Your prisoner?" returned he with the iron cask in mocking accents and barbarous Italian, such as characterized the hired mercenaries and adventurers who hailed from beyond the Alps. "Are we at war? Pray, gentles, enlighten our poor understanding, that we too may profit by your wisdom. Or are we to understand that might is right? We shall be governed by the oracle!"
"Know you who I am?" shouted the leader of the men-at-arms, relying rather on the prestige of a dreaded coat-of-arms than on the issue of so doubtful a conflict, to withdraw with honor from an affair of little credit to his name. "I am Giovanni Frangipani, Lord of Astura, Torre del Greco, and Terra di Lavoro! Who are you?"--
The giant bowed slightly in his saddle.
"Sono Rinaldo, Duca di Spoleto," he replied carelessly, squinting his little watery eyes. "I am much beholden to meet you again, my Lord Frangipani. Have you counted your beads to-day, after ravishing a maiden from the Campagna, and are you loving your neighbor as yourself? Pray--relieve my anxiety!"
At the mention of his name, the name of one of the most renowned free-lances in Italy, at the period of our story, the Frangipani's cheek paled and his followers uttered a cry of dismay.
But the Lord of Astura believed discretion the better part of valor. With a half suppressed oath he wheeled his steed about, and, pursued by the loud gibes and taunts of Rinaldo's men, they trotted off and disappeared in the gorge.
He, whose grandiloquent estate seemed to have impressed even so powerful a baron of the empire as the Lord of Astura, now turned in his saddle and beckoned Francesco to his side.
His followers brought up the rear, and, choosing a winding forest path scarcely wide enough for two to ride abreast, the singular cavalcade cantered into the golden vapor of the wood.
At their feet lay a great valley, a broad bowl touched by the declining rays of the sun. Its depths were checkered with woods and meadows, pools set like lapis lazuli in an emerald throne. A lake lay under the shadow of the hills. Heights girded the valley on every hand, save where a river like a giant's sword clove a deep defile through the hill.
Francesco rode in silence by the side of the giant, gazing at the valley below. It seemed like a new world to him; the craggy heights, the blown cloud-banners overhead, the dusky woods frowning and smiling alternately under the sun. A stream sang under the boughs, purling and foaming over a broad ledge of stone into a misty pool.
They had come to the run of an abyss, where, the trees receding, the ground broke abruptly into rocky slopes, plunging down perpendicular under thickets of arbutus and pine. Four roads crossed at a spot where a great wooden crucifix stretched out rough arms athwart the sky.
For a time the Duke of Spoleto had maintained a grim silence, and Francesco began to wonder what his captors, if such they were, held in store for him. The gray walls of a ruin encrusted with lichen gold and green, rose towards the azure of the evening sky. A great silence covered the valley, save for the bleating of sheep on remote meadows, or the cry of the lapwing from the marshes. Distance purpled the far horizon. The woods stood wondrous green and silent, as mute guardians of the past.
On the slope of a hill, in the shade of the battered masonry of a feudal castle overlooking to the north Romagna and the hills of Umbria, to southward the sun-steeped plains of Calabria, Francesco at last faced the Duke of Spoleto, his bare, blood-stained sword across his knees. He had partaken of drink and food, while his steed was grazing on the emerald turf, and the men-at-arms were roasting a kid and some chestnuts they had gathered, over a fire kindled with dried branches and decayed leaves.
Then only the Duke of Spoleto addressed the youth, whose air and manner had impressed the captain of free-lances to a degree that confidence challenged confidence, for the duke was not slow to discern the stalwart metal under the friar's garb.
"Honest men are best out of the way when great folk are upon the road," he expounded largely, breaking the long silence. "By what special dispensation have you incurred the love of the Lord of Astura? Have you perchance confessed his wife?"
And the Duke of Spoleto roared, as if he had given vent to some uncommon witticism.
The degrading nature of his predicament caused Francesco to be more frank than he had intended. Nevertheless he replied tentatively.
"The Lord of Astura is a Ghibelline. No doubt it was the friar's garb which aroused his choler, for I never saw him before."
The Duke of Spoleto nodded grimly.
"A renegade is ever the worst enemy of his kind."
The paradox was lost upon Francesco.
But in the course of their converse the Duke of Spoleto revealed himself to be one Count Rupert of Teck, a bondsman of the Swabian branch of the Hohenstauffen, near whose castle his own was situated. In their cause he had fought Margaret of Flanders and King Ottokar of Bohemia, William of Holland and Charles of Anjou. After the fateful day of Benevento, where Manfred, the poet-king, had lost crown and life against the Provencals, he had withdrawn into the fastnesses of Central Italy, collecting about him a company of malcontents, such as follow from afar the camp-fires of an army, and had founded a mythical dukedom of uncertain territory among the Apennines, to chasten the world with his club and bruise the devil and all his progeny. From his stronghold the Duke of Spoleto, as Rupert of Teck more sonorously styled himself, harassed alike the Pope, the Pope's minion and the Guelphs. But of all whose watch-towers frowned from inaccessible heights upon the Roman Campagna, he bore a special and indelible grudge to the lords of Astura, the cause and nature of which he did not see fit to disclose.
Francesco listened spellbound to the account of the duke's greatness. He had his own code of laws, and there was no appeal from his decision. In the ravine below, a torrent, thundering over moss-grown boulders, sang a fitting accompaniment to the duke's apotheosis. Far to the south Soracte towered against the gold of the evening sky. By his side a cistus was in bloom, its petals falling upon the long grass and the broken stone.
In the valley the peasantry were returning from Vespers. The silvery chimes of the Angelus, from some convent concealed in the forest deeps, smote the silence of evening. Deep to the confines of the dusky sky glimmered the far Tyrrhenian Sea, washing shores remote with sheets of foam. Black cliffs, craggy and solemn, frowned upon the sea. The far heights bristled with woodland, dark under the setting sun.
Not once did Francesco interrupt the guttural account his host gave of his campaigns, until the Duke of Spoleto referred to the Frangipani. Some evil fate seemed indeed to have predestined his meeting with the Lord of Astura, and while his late encounter with the brother of Raniero lacked the personal element, Francesco's intuition informed him that, sooner or later, the slumbering spark of an enduring hatred would be fanned into a devouring flame.
Francesco's apparently irrelevant question with regard to the origin of his host's acquaintance with the lords of Astura caused the Duke of Spoleto to utter a great oath.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, "and shall I not pluck out the heart of the devil, who--"
He suddenly checked himself.
"Though an avowed Ghibelline," he said, "I trust him not! His brother Latino lords it over Velletri: Archbishop and Grand Inquisitor in one, he deals out blessings and musty corn, while he mutters the prayer of the Fourth Innocent in the Lateran: Perdatis hujus Babylonii nomen et reliquias, progeniem atque germen,--a truly Christian prayer!"
"There is a third!" Francesco interposed with meaning.
"You know him?" shouted the duke. "A twig of the old tree,--a libertine, who would barter his soul for thirty pieces of silver! From yonder hill you may see their lair, suspended on a rock beyond the Cape of Circe."
The speaker suddenly paused and, turning to Francesco, gave a vicious pull at the latter's garb.
"Cast off your tatters," he roared, and the sound of his great voice reechoed through the glen. "Join us in a Devil's Ave! Your limbs were made for something better than to dangle in the noose of a Frangipani. Or,--if the garb is pleasing in your sight you may wear it over a suit of chain-mail and lead us in the fray with lance and shield! It will greatly promote our cause,--above and below!"
And the stout duke grasped Francesco by the shoulders, affectionately, and shook him till his bones creaked.
Francesco repressed the outcry which the pain drove to his lips. A spasm of deepest bitterness passed over his face, as he said:
"It may not be;--at least not now! I have a special mission to perform. The time may come--who knows? Then I will seek you in your forest glades. I have not always been that thing--a monk!"
The word had passed his lips beyond recall.
Rupert of Teck regarded him quizzically.
"Purge your own pasture and let the Devil take care of his own! Why subordinate your soul to chains forged of men?"
The day was waning when Francesco accompanied his host back to the ruin. An arched doorway with broken pillars led to a low room, roofed with rough timber. There was an improvised bed of bracken in one corner, where he was to rest for the night, for the Duke of Spoleto would not hear of his departure before dawn.
"It were perilous even for one familiar with the roads to traverse the forests at night; there are more rogues about than you wot of," he said. "On the morrow I will myself guide you to the road you seek!"
Francesco accepted the offer and hospitality of the Duke of Spoleto gratefully, for he was neither physically nor mentally disposed to continue his journey at once. They entered the ruin together, while the band of the duke chose their resting-place outside on the emerald greensward.
Night came apace with a round moon swimming in a sky of dusky azure, studded with a myriad glistening stars.
There was a great loneliness upon Francesco's soul.
He lay awake a long time. He heard the night wind in the forest trees and the occasional murmur of a voice, that seemed to be making a long prayer. He was moving in the world of men now. Yet all the love seemed to have left his life and all his struggles to have ended in bitterness. In the hour of his trial Ilaria had failed him, had hid her face from him behind the mask of scorn. He had little hope of sleep, for there were thoughts moving in his brain, tramping like restless sentinels to and fro. The night seemed full of ghostly voices crying to him out of the dark. He heard Ilaria's voice, even as he had heard it when she taunted him at Avellino; her laughter in the dells of Vallombrosa echoed in his heart. He remembered the days when he had heard her sing with the voice he loved so well; for him she would sing no more. He found himself wondering in his heart if she would weep if he died. Perhaps her scorn would melt away when she learned that he had gone from earth forever.
Francesco passed the greater part of the night open-eyed, for the memories of the past drove the sleep from his aching eyes. A soft breeze played in the branches of the giant oaks, and among the roses which clambered about the walls of the ruin. Slim cypresses streaked the misty grass, where a little pool caught the light of the moon.
Soon the dawn came, a silvery haze rising in the east. The cypresses caught the streaming light, gliding from tree to tree; in the meadows fluttered golden mists. The far woods glistened and seemed to tongue forth flame. A trumpet sounded. The duke's band rose to meet the sun.
After having partaken of a morning repast, such as the duke's stores afforded, Francesco took leave of his host, who assigned to him a guide, to conduct him to the broad highway to Rome. But, at parting, the burly duke admonished Francesco to break the fetters forged in hell and to turn to him in his hour of need.
The world was full of the splendor of the awakened day. The waves of the mountain torrent were touched with opalescent lights, as they swept through the gorge below.
Francesco's guide was a godly little man with a goat's beard and a nose like the snout of a pike. For a goatherd he was amazingly learned in matters of religion and in his knowledge of the names and attributes of the saints. He halted frequently, knelt down, prayed and kissed a little holly-wood cross that he carried. His beard wagged through long processions of the saints, but St. Joseph of Arimathaea was honored with his especial confidence.
Francesco had never seen such an example of secular godliness before, and began to be impatient with the old fellow, who bobbed down so frequently, looking like a goat squatting upon its haunches, and mumbling over a great beard. All this devotion was excellent in its way; but Francesco's religion was running into action, and the old man loitered and told the miles like beads upon his rosary.
He decided to rid himself of the fellow as soon as the goatherd had served his purpose, for this verminous piety was like the drawing of a dirty clout across the fresh flavor of a May morning.
Where four roads crossed, they parted, and Francesco, cantering along the high-road, little guessed that the wary duke had assigned to him this especial guide to disgust him with his own garb and calling.
