The Hill of Venus Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  THE DUKE OF SPOLETO

  Francesco, having spent the night at a wayside inn, was astir with thebreaking of the dawn. He saddled and bridled his horse for the day'sjourney, and having paid his reckoning, set his face to the west. Thegrass was drenched with dew, the woods towered heavenward with athousand golden peaks, while down in the valley a rivulet echoed backthe light, chanting sonorously as it leaped over the moss-grownboulders in its narrow bed.

  Francesco was very solemn about the eyes that morning. He looked asone who had aged years in one night, and strove with might and main toforget the past. He watched the sun climb over the leafy hills ofVelletri, saw the fleecy morning clouds sail through the heavens,heard the thunder of the streams. There was life in the day and wildlove in the woods. Yet from the world of passion and delight he was anexile, rather a pilgrim, therein fettered by a heavy vow. He was tobear the Grail of Love through all these wilds, yet might never lookthereon, or quench his thirst.

  Through all the heavy morning hours Francesco fought and struggledwith his youth. Ilaria's image floated by his side, robed in crimsonand gold, her hair dazzled him more than the noon-day brightness ofthe sun. As for her eyes, he dared not look therein, but thedisdainful laughter of her lips still echoed in his heart. The silenceof the woods had bewitched his soul.

  The towers and turrets of Camaldoli had faded behind him in the steelyblue. On the distant horizon Tivoli towered ensconced among hercypress-groves. To northward the woods bristled under the relentlessgleam of the sun, a glitter like blackened steel under a summer sky.The road wound under ancient trees. Many a huge ilex cast its gloomover the grass. The stone pine towered on the hills, above dense woodsof 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 thesun rode higher in the heavens, he came to a wilder region. A desolatevalley opened gradually before him, steeped on every side with theblack umbrage of the woods. A wind had arisen, brisk and eager as ablithe breath from the sea, and cloud shadows raced athwart theemerald dells.

  Lost in reveries of the past, and brooding over what the times to comemight hold for him, Francesco trotted on through a grove of birches,whose filmy foliage arabesqued the heavens. A glade opened to the roadbelow. All around him were tall hills deluged with green woods. Astream 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 gallopover the grass, swords agleam, lances pricking the blue, while the hotbabel of their tongues echoed from the valley. Francesco, with a grimtwist 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 thesilence came the dull thunder of hoofs as the men cantered on,swerving and blundering through the trees. They rode faster thanFrancesco upon his tired steed, and the distance dwindled between thepack and the chase.

  Onward Francesco fled. The black boughs grazed his head, thetree-trunks seemed to gallop in the gloom. He could see steel flashingthrough the wood, like meteorites plunging through a cloud.

  Yet he hardly so much as turned his head, for his eyes were piercingthe shadows before him. As he swayed along, he now heard a greattrampling of hoofs in the woods. The nearest galloper swung out fromthe gloom. He was leaning over the neck of his horse, his lips partedover his teeth, his sword poised from his outstretched arm. The swordcircled over Francesco's head, its whistling breath fanning his hair.He cowered; his horse swerved aside. The horse of his assailantstumbled over a projecting tree stump, hurling its rider over its headsome six feet away upon the ground, where he lay stunned, dropping hissword in his fall. Like lightning Francesco leaped from his saddle,picked up the weapon, and remounted, just in time to ward off avicious blow aimed at his head from a second horseman who had plungedfrom the thickets.

  Francesco's early training served him well and proved his foe'sundoing. Drawing up his horse on sluthering hoofs he faced the secondassailant. Their swords whimpered, screamed and clashed. Francesco'sblade struck the man's throat through. Catching his upreared shield ashe fell, he tore it from its supporting arm, just as two more horsemenblundered out of the gloom. They sighted the horseless steed, the deadman on the ground; they saw the monk with sword and shield, and pausedfor a moment staggered at the uncommon sight.

  Francesco, profiting by their panic, twisted tighter the strapping ofhis shield, and with sword circling over his head pushed his horse toa gathering gallop down the hill. But his assailants had recoveredfrom their sudden paralysis. Swerving right and left, they dashed downthe glade in hot pursuit. Gaining on him from all sides, his fateseemed to be sealed, when directly across Francesco's path there rodeleisurely out of the gloom of the forest a score or more ofindividuals, mounted on steeds well suited to the riders, the like ofwhich in point of incongruity of garb and appearance he had neverbefore beheld.

  One wore a cuirass of plaited gold, beneath which was visible a shirtof coarsest hemp, and two dirty bare legs. Another had a monk's capotetied 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 coveredwith 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; asixth carried a round shield, covered with raw-hide, and a spear. Somotley was the array and so fantastic the appearance of the newcomers,that one might have taken them for a band of souls turned out ofpurgatory, who, on returning to earth, had robbed a pawn shop to covertheir nakedness.

  But he who in point of portliness and bulk would at once have beenacknowledged as the one in authority, a stout and herculean being,swaying upon an antediluvian steed, with a helmet upon his headresembling a huge iron cask, now hove into sight, like some portly Panbestriding a Centaur. He was of exceeding bulk, with a flaming redbeard and small, close-set eyes. His sword-belt would have girdled twocommon men's loins. His arms had the appearance of two clubs. A greatslit of a mouth, under a bristling mustachio, revealed two rows ofteeth, large and strong as a boar's; a double chin flapped to and frowith the motion of the steed, around which his legs curved like thestaves of a cask.

  Being unable to check the speed of his horse in the steep downwardgrade of the glen, Francesco was hurled almost bodily into the verymidst of this fantastic array, not knowing whether he had escaped onefoe but to encounter another, or whether there was salvation for himin the appearance of this strange throng.

  The sight of a monk racing at breakneck speed down the glade, swingingaloft a blood-stained sword and riding as one born in the saddle, fora moment staggered even the nondescripts and their leader. But, witheyes blinking under their penthouses of fat, the latter had at aglance taken in the situation. A signal,--and a whirlwind seemed tofill the emerald gloom. The wood grew alive with shouting and thenoise of hoofs. Their number compelled Francesco to wheel about andface his pursuers, as those to whom he trusted for his safetycompletely choked up the gorge.

  His assailants had come to a sudden halt, as they found themselvesface to face with this fantastic array, outnumbering their own someten to one. They seemed to wait the command of their leader, who had,in the meantime, come up, bestriding a black stallion, a white plumeupon his helmet, and upon his shield and breastplate the armorialbearings of some great feudal house, the emblem of the Broken Loaf.

  The giant of the woods reined in his elephantine steed within a fewpaces of Francesco's pursuers and waved his chubby arm, as if he badethem 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 hugesword. "What is the sport? Pray, let us too share in your pastime! Sixto one--and he of friar's orders--we take the weaker side!"

  "Insolent! Know you to
whom you speak?" shouted the leader of themen-at-arms. "The monk is our prisoner! Stand back--at your peril!"

  "Your prisoner?" returned he with the iron cask in mocking accents andbarbarous Italian, such as characterized the hired mercenaries andadventurers who hailed from beyond the Alps. "Are we at war? Pray,gentles, enlighten our poor understanding, that we too may profit byyour wisdom. Or are we to understand that might is right? We shall begoverned by the oracle!"

  "Know you who I am?" shouted the leader of the men-at-arms, relyingrather on the prestige of a dreaded coat-of-arms than on the issue ofso doubtful a conflict, to withdraw with honor from an affair oflittle 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 hislittle watery eyes. "I am much beholden to meet you again, my LordFrangipani. Have you counted your beads to-day, after ravishing amaiden from the Campagna, and are you loving your neighbor asyourself? Pray--relieve my anxiety!"

  At the mention of his name, the name of one of the most renownedfree-lances in Italy, at the period of our story, the Frangipani'scheek 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, pursuedby the loud gibes and taunts of Rinaldo's men, they trotted off anddisappeared in the gorge.

  He, whose grandiloquent estate seemed to have impressed even sopowerful a baron of the empire as the Lord of Astura, now turned inhis saddle and beckoned Francesco to his side.

  His followers brought up the rear, and, choosing a winding forest pathscarcely wide enough for two to ride abreast, the singular cavalcadecantered into the golden vapor of the wood.

  At their feet lay a great valley, a broad bowl touched by thedeclining rays of the sun. Its depths were checkered with woods andmeadows, pools set like lapis lazuli in an emerald throne. A lake layunder the shadow of the hills. Heights girded the valley on everyhand, save where a river like a giant's sword clove a deep defilethrough the hill.

  Francesco rode in silence by the side of the giant, gazing at thevalley below. It seemed like a new world to him; the craggy heights,the blown cloud-banners overhead, the dusky woods frowning and smilingalternately under the sun. A stream sang under the boughs, purling andfoaming over a broad ledge of stone into a misty pool.

  They had come to the run of an abyss, where, the trees receding, theground broke abruptly into rocky slopes, plunging down perpendicularunder thickets of arbutus and pine. Four roads crossed at a spot wherea great wooden crucifix stretched out rough arms athwart the sky.

  For a time the Duke of Spoleto had maintained a grim silence, andFrancesco began to wonder what his captors, if such they were, held instore for him. The gray walls of a ruin encrusted with lichen gold andgreen, rose towards the azure of the evening sky. A great silencecovered the valley, save for the bleating of sheep on remote meadows,or the cry of the lapwing from the marshes. Distance purpled the farhorizon. The woods stood wondrous green and silent, as mute guardiansof the past.

  On the slope of a hill, in the shade of the battered masonry of afeudal castle overlooking to the north Romagna and the hills ofUmbria, to southward the sun-steeped plains of Calabria, Francesco atlast faced the Duke of Spoleto, his bare, blood-stained sword acrosshis knees. He had partaken of drink and food, while his steed wasgrazing on the emerald turf, and the men-at-arms were roasting a kidand some chestnuts they had gathered, over a fire kindled with driedbranches and decayed leaves.

  Then only the Duke of Spoleto addressed the youth, whose air andmanner had impressed the captain of free-lances to a degree thatconfidence challenged confidence, for the duke was not slow to discernthe stalwart metal under the friar's garb.

  "Honest men are best out of the way when great folk are upon theroad," he expounded largely, breaking the long silence. "By whatspecial 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 someuncommon witticism.

  The degrading nature of his predicament caused Francesco to be morefrank than he had intended. Nevertheless he replied tentatively.

  "The Lord of Astura is a Ghibelline. No doubt it was the friar's garbwhich 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 revealedhimself to be one Count Rupert of Teck, a bondsman of the Swabianbranch of the Hohenstauffen, near whose castle his own was situated.In their cause he had fought Margaret of Flanders and King Ottokar ofBohemia, William of Holland and Charles of Anjou. After the fatefulday of Benevento, where Manfred, the poet-king, had lost crown andlife against the Provencals, he had withdrawn into the fastnesses ofCentral Italy, collecting about him a company of malcontents, such asfollow from afar the camp-fires of an army, and had founded a mythicaldukedom of uncertain territory among the Apennines, to chasten theworld with his club and bruise the devil and all his progeny. From hisstronghold the Duke of Spoleto, as Rupert of Teck more sonorouslystyled himself, harassed alike the Pope, the Pope's minion and theGuelphs. But of all whose watch-towers frowned from inaccessibleheights upon the Roman Campagna, he bore a special and indeliblegrudge to the lords of Astura, the cause and nature of which he didnot 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 hisdecision. In the ravine below, a torrent, thundering over moss-grownboulders, sang a fitting accompaniment to the duke's apotheosis. Farto the south Soracte towered against the gold of the evening sky. Byhis side a cistus was in bloom, its petals falling upon the long grassand the broken stone.

  In the valley the peasantry were returning from Vespers. The silverychimes of the Angelus, from some convent concealed in the forestdeeps, smote the silence of evening. Deep to the confines of the duskysky glimmered the far Tyrrhenian Sea, washing shores remote withsheets 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 ofhis campaigns, until the Duke of Spoleto referred to the Frangipani.Some evil fate seemed indeed to have predestined his meeting with theLord of Astura, and while his late encounter with the brother ofRaniero lacked the personal element, Francesco's intuition informedhim that, sooner or later, the slumbering spark of an enduring hatredwould be fanned into a devouring flame.

  Francesco's apparently irrelevant question with regard to the originof his host's acquaintance with the lords of Astura caused the Duke ofSpoleto 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 brotherLatino lords it over Velletri: Archbishop and Grand Inquisitor in one,he deals out blessings and musty corn, while he mutters the prayer ofthe Fourth Innocent in the Lateran: Perdatis hujus Babylonii nomen etreliquias, 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,--alibertine, who would barter his soul for thirty pieces of silver! Fromyonder hill you may see their lair, suspended on a rock beyond theCape of Circe."

  The speaker suddenly paused and, turning to Francesco, gave a viciouspull at the latter's garb.

  "Cast off your tatters," he roared, and the sound of his great voicereechoed through the glen. "Join us in a Devil's Ave! Your limbs weremade for something better than to dangle in the noose of a Frangipani.Or,--if the garb is pleasing in your sig
ht you may wear it over a suitof chain-mail and lead us in the fray with lance and shield! It willgreatly 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. Aspasm of deepest bitterness passed over his face, as he said:

  "It may not be;--at least not now! I have a special mission toperform. The time may come--who knows? Then I will seek you in yourforest 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! Whysubordinate your soul to chains forged of men?"

  The day was waning when Francesco accompanied his host back to theruin. An arched doorway with broken pillars led to a low room, roofedwith rough timber. There was an improvised bed of bracken in onecorner, where he was to rest for the night, for the Duke of Spoletowould not hear of his departure before dawn.

  "It were perilous even for one familiar with the roads to traverse theforests at night; there are more rogues about than you wot of," hesaid. "On the morrow I will myself guide you to the road you seek!"

  Francesco accepted the offer and hospitality of the Duke of Spoletogratefully, for he was neither physically nor mentally disposed tocontinue his journey at once. They entered the ruin together, whilethe band of the duke chose their resting-place outside on the emeraldgreensward.

  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 treesand the occasional murmur of a voice, that seemed to be making a longprayer. He was moving in the world of men now. Yet all the love seemedto have left his life and all his struggles to have ended inbitterness. In the hour of his trial Ilaria had failed him, had hidher face from him behind the mask of scorn. He had little hope ofsleep, for there were thoughts moving in his brain, tramping likerestless sentinels to and fro. The night seemed full of ghostly voicescrying to him out of the dark. He heard Ilaria's voice, even as he hadheard it when she taunted him at Avellino; her laughter in the dellsof Vallombrosa echoed in his heart. He remembered the days when he hadheard her sing with the voice he loved so well; for him she would singno more. He found himself wondering in his heart if she would weep ifhe died. Perhaps her scorn would melt away when she learned that hehad gone from earth forever.

  Francesco passed the greater part of the night open-eyed, for thememories of the past drove the sleep from his aching eyes. A softbreeze played in the branches of the giant oaks, and among the roseswhich clambered about the walls of the ruin. Slim cypresses streakedthe misty grass, where a little pool caught the light of the moon.

  Soon the dawn came, a silvery haze rising in the east. The cypressescaught the streaming light, gliding from tree to tree; in the meadowsfluttered golden mists. The far woods glistened and seemed to tongueforth 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 storesafforded, Francesco took leave of his host, who assigned to him aguide, to conduct him to the broad highway to Rome. But, at parting,the burly duke admonished Francesco to break the fetters forged inhell and to turn to him in his hour of need.

  The world was full of the splendor of the awakened day. The waves ofthe mountain torrent were touched with opalescent lights, as theyswept through the gorge below.

  Francesco's guide was a godly little man with a goat's beard and anose like the snout of a pike. For a goatherd he was amazingly learnedin matters of religion and in his knowledge of the names andattributes of the saints. He halted frequently, knelt down, prayed andkissed a little holly-wood cross that he carried. His beard waggedthrough long processions of the saints, but St. Joseph of Arimathaeawas 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 sofrequently, looking like a goat squatting upon its haunches, andmumbling over a great beard. All this devotion was excellent in itsway; but Francesco's religion was running into action, and the old manloitered and told the miles like beads upon his rosary.

  He decided to rid himself of the fellow as soon as the goatherd hadserved his purpose, for this verminous piety was like the drawing of adirty clout across the fresh flavor of a May morning.

  Where four roads crossed, they parted, and Francesco, cantering alongthe high-road, little guessed that the wary duke had assigned to himthis especial guide to disgust him with his own garb and calling.