The Hill of Venus Read online

  CHAPTER III

  QUAINT WAYFARERS

  Early on the following morning Francesco left Rome through the ancientFlaminian gate and started upon his journey towards Viterbo.

  It was a fair morning, golden and light.

  Over the Campagna hung white mists, that hovered longest where theTiber rolled; but over the green mountains of Rocca Romana the woodswere alight with sunbeams and the glancing streams ran sparklingthrough meadows, starred with dragon-flower and cyclamen, and shadedwith heavy boughs of beach and chestnut.

  In lieu of following the Via Aurelia, where it wound towards the coastby Santa Marinella and Santa Severa and mediaeval Palo, and thevolcanic soil and the steep ravines by Cervetri, where the longavenues of cliff sepulchres are all that remain to show the site ofancient Caere, Francesco pursued the beaten cattle-tracks, avoidingthe Maccarese marshes and following the course of the Aerone as far asthe high cliffs, up by forsaken Galera. And soon the downs and moors,the tumuli and tombs and the heaving expanse of the Roman Campagna laybehind him, and with them the fear of encountering roving companies ofProvencals, which might still remain in these regions.

  It was a morning such as is only seen in Southern climes, and onsimilar elevations; the air so pure and bright that every objectappeared translucent.

  The valley into which Francesco descended, although partially veiledin mists, began to disclose its variety and richness, contrastingstrangely with the undulating monotony of the Campagna, which laybehind him. Little villages appeared, nestling on the craggy bases ofthe mountains, castles and watch-towers rose on remote pinnacles;forests of oak and pine waved freshly in the morning wind; pastures ofbrightest emerald bordered the river; every rock displayed in itsnooks and crevices wild-flowers of brilliant hues; every breath waftedacross the vale brought new intoxicating odors.

  The very cataract in the distance, though lost in snowy mists, wore adiadem, a rainbow of palest pink and azure, like a semi-circularspectral bridge.

  Francesco chose the wider path, and lost himself in a tangledunderbrush of myrtle, stunted vines and high weeds, while the loftierforest-trees continually showered their golden dew upon him, as hepassed under their odorous, lightly-swaying branches.

  If the life at Monte Cassino had seemed hard and uneventful, these fewdays in the larger, wider world had crowded experiences upon Francescowith an impetuosity that had left him a little bewildered. Hungry fora heart, his soul, bleeding under the leash of Fate, looked down uponlife as from an isolation, and found it as desolate and empty as themost ascetic soul might have desired.

  Heartening himself, he tried to see some reasonable purpose linkingall these happenings. He was being tempted and ill-used for the sakeof a finer patience and stronger discipline, serving his novitiate ina rougher and more riotous house, meeting winds that had not reachedhim behind the walls of Monte Cassino.

  He had taken his discipline, his schooling and his vows as a matterthat was inevitable. But the lure of the outer world, combined withthe memories of the past, had thrummed incessantly and insistentlyagainst the armor of his cowl.

  And as, with the silence of a great resolve, he pushed slowly alonghis solitary path, he wondered vaguely at the ultimate goal.

  He had been taught that a monk should accept all the ordinances andask no questions, clasping an austere docility like a girdle about hisloins.

  Nevertheless, his eyes lost their lustre, as he remembered the scenesof the past night, and they fell into a vague brooding stare.

  Yet he no longer felt angry with those who had turned from him indisdain. For a time the fire in his heart had sunk too low even foranger. He was dull and weary and a little stunned by the night'sbafflings, and the collapse of his resolves.

  He was fighting against destiny, and the wave was mightier than thevessel that had ventured upon it.

  Francesco had started out before dawn, brushing the dew from themeadow-grass and following the misty twilight track of a brook thattraced its serpentine course through the forest glades. The songs ofbirds went throbbing through the woodland.

  Francesco had come to a place where four ways met, with a stone crossstanding on a hillock, when out of the dusk of the forest aisles rodethe portly bulk of a man, who was hardly astir so early in order toadmire the beauties of the dawn, for he came along the greensward withthe gait of one who combines caution with alertness.

  No sooner had the Duke of Spoleto laid eyes upon Francesco than hebroke out into a glad roar.

  "Whither are you bound so lone and so early?" he bellowed after mutualgreeting. "Has the soil of Rome ignited under your holy feet?"

  "I am bound for Viterbo," Francesco replied, glad to have the monotonyof the journey and the trend of his ruminations relieved by one whohad, at one time, been of such signal service to him.

  "And whither do you travel?" he asked in turn.

  "Every road leads to Rome, or the devil," the duke roared sagaciously,"though three days of knight-errantry have brought nothing butpetticoats. The world is overburdened with women!"

  Francesco nodded, although he was not sure of the fact.

  Enlarging on the subject, as they rode side by side, the Duke ofSpoleto opined that women were capable of giving a deal of trouble.

  Francesco considered the suggestion with due seriousness withoutventuring an expression on the subject.

  "You come from Rome?" the duke queried at last.

  "The Ghibellines are in possession of the town," Francesco repliedwith heavy heart.

  The duke laughed.

  "The spirit of chivalry runs counter to the growlings of the fathers,"he said, then paused dramatically. "Anjou's name is a great andstinking sore. The whole country holds its nose because of its stench.As for him who succeeded the Cobbler's son in the chair of St.Peter:--he has yet to learn that self-righteousness but needs thedevil's kiss on the forehead."

  Francesco made no reply.

  The Duke of Spoleto struck his fist into his palm.

  "Meat, drink and the love of woman,--these things matter more thanHeaven and Hell and the solemn ravings of an ascetic though," he addedmeditatively, "the holy fathers of the Church teach that woman is theseed and core of all evil. Perchance we find therein the reason oftheir own pitiable estate!"

  Francesco remained silent for a space, and the duke gave him a queerpuzzled look.

  "Look you," he said at last, picturesquely, "you seem not like othermonks, fit but to be made a mock of by sluts who are ready to laugh atan ass' hind legs. That gentry I hate,--a mad medley of the devil."

  The duke spat with emphasis and rubbed his palms.

  Francesco ventured to enlighten the lord of the forests.

  "Yet--may not one be as one standing on the threshold, with a light inone's hand, illumining the path of others, yet remaining himself inthe gloom?"

  The duke shrugged.

  "Sophistry is the devil's pastime," he said dubiously. "Many anold-established ghost there is, who has never seen such a thing as anhonest monk. And there is nothing that ghosts love as they donovelties!"

  Francesco pondered over the wisdom of his companion, but did not feelcalled upon to enlarge upon it. He was even now far from convinced ofhis own sincerity and steadfastness of purpose. He was as a manshipwrecked on a stormy sea, ever rocking with the waves, with nobeacon-light beckoning him to shore.

  "You have seen Conradino?" the duke said after a pause.

  It might have been a statement, it might have been a question.

  Francesco nodded.

  "Rome is as Ghibelline at this hour as if the Pope had lived foreverat Viterbo!"

  The Duke of Spoleto shrugged.

  "A passing fever! Many a one's soul is in sympathy with one's snout!"

  "You do not love the cowl," Francesco ventured, with a sidelong glanceat his companion, whose nose was in the air as if he sniffed countlessmonasteries and convents.

  After a time the Duke of Spoleto growled.

  "If the world were so perilous a place,
were it not more manly to goout and conquer it than to hide from it like a girl that bars the doorof the room? What if Christ and the apostles had shut themselves up instone cells, the grim silence, the half-starved sanctity of thecloister? What has it done for the world? Men make a patchwork quiltof life and call the patchwork religion and law!"

  He threw the challenge into the balance of his discontent.

  Knitting his brows, he continued:

  "Speak not of the Church to me! We are bidden to perceive therein thebody of the Lord Christ! But what is it we see? The most completemechanism for controlling men, manipulated by human intelligence! Youbid me regard the monks in Italy as holy people in the midst of anevil world?"

  He paused with a dramatic gesture.

  "Rank heresy!" he bellowed, answering his own question. "A Church withno lust of temporal power is unthinkable. The Church requires astatesman for a leader, not a saint! Behold your saintly Clement atViterbo, invoking the divine wrath upon the heads of the justclaimants of these realms! Cast off the garb which disgraces yourmanhood! Mount a steed, challenge the devil, and slay dragons!"

  Francesco felt heavy at heart.

  An inner voice had long apprised him that the duke had recognized theman beneath the garb, and that he was addressing his confidences tothe ghost of Francesco's self.

  Now and then he surprised a sidelong glance, directed towards himself,as if his burly companion were appraising his manhood, his muscles andhis strides.

  His surmise fell not far short of the mark, for after a brief silencethe lord of the woods spat vigorously.

  "And howsoever did you happen into the cloth?" he blurted with a bluntdirectness, as if eager to dispose of the question.

  "That is a long story," Francesco replied. "He, however, who sufferedthe most thereby, was least concerned in the cause!"--

  The duke nodded, as if the matter were perfectly clear to him.

  "You were promised special rewards and dispensations?"

  Francesco's look of surprise informed the duke of the nature of theanswer before he spoke.

  "He who would sup with the Devil must needs have a long spoon!" theduke roared sententiously, and apparently well pleased with his ownpenetration.

  They now travelled upon a more densely populated tract; they passedwayfarers and pilgrims; great folk on horseback with little folklicking their stirrup.

  They passed an old crone at the roadside, eating her meagre meal outof a basket. Her fingers were like claws; her eyes were half-shut andshe had wisps of hair on her chin. When she saw the twain, shescratched her chin with a talon and begged Francesco for a blessing,which the latter gave, while the duke shouted:

  "Shave your chin, old fool! Shave your chin!"

  Two hairy beggars, brandishing cudgels, emerged from the thicket.

  No sooner did they lay eyes on the duke, than they bounded down theroad and out of sight.

  The Duke of Spoleto smote his thighs and laughed like a woodpecker.

  They passed two howl-women, making for a near-by castle and practisingtheir doleful chants.

  The duke greeted them with a grotesque bow.

  "Why so joyful, fascinating graces?" he bellowed through his auburnbristles. "Is the fiend assembling a chorus in these regions, to leadit in procession to hell? I commend his taste!"

  The howl-women gibbered some inarticulate response and blew down theroad, to the great delight of the duke.

  A fat reeve with heavy saddle-bags and a fiery face whipped amouse-colored nag right about and departed the way he came, as soon ashe spied the duke in the distance.

  The duke's mirth increased as the mud-sticker, as he called him, tookto flight. He seemed vastly pleased with the respect he inspired.

  At last, at a cross-road, they came upon two women in red cloaks andgaudy tunics, seated on the greensward, with a certain dubiousalertness about the eyes, that glimmered between hunger anddiscontent. By their side in the grass lay a viol; they seemed to havechosen the spot to rest.

  As the duke and his companion approached, the twain watched them witha peculiar, hard-eyed intentness, glanced at each other, and smiled.

  "Whither away, my dear?" said the taller of the two. "It is fairweather for a journey!"--

  The duke bowed profusely.

  "Fair weather for a good thirst," he replied, nodding at the stonebottle which reposed in the capacious lap of the speaker.

  "You carry a lusty belly," replied the dame, whose eyes had a hungryboldness, while she offered the bottle to her interlocutor.

  The duke took a liberal draught. Francesco frowned.

  Then the three chaffered with obvious good humor, touching upon manytopics, which sounded strange to Francesco's ears.

  They touched upon the wonders of the swamps, wild beasts, wolves andbears; they conversed of the outlaws of Arezzo, whose leader was saidto be a woman; of the stone that bled on Passion Sunday, of themysterious almond-tree at Treviso, that bore fruit showing the impressof the face of the Christ.

  The duke seemed remarkably well versed in all matters pertaining toChurch or state. When he stopped for a pull at the stone bottle, thetwo women laughed, taking alternate bites from an apple and munchingthe pulp with a voracious movement of the jaws.

  Francesco thought them queer wayfarers, for they in turn stared athim, then at each other and laughed, looking at Francesco's grave faceas if it were the quaintest thing on earth.

  "Saints! What a sweet gentleman!" said the taller of the two, "and tosee such a one in the spider's web!"

  And as she sighed, her eyes discoursed to Francesco something thatsavored not of the Church.

  The fat vagrant offered him the bottle, while her companion's eyessent him a tentative offer of friendliness, half timid, half bold.

  Francesco passed it by with a flash of the eyes to the horizon, and astraight setting of the chin.

  After having parted from the two rowdies in the fantastic cloaks, theduke and Francesco continued upon their way.

  "There is freedom only on the mountain-heights," the duke said, asthey arrived at a crossing, marked by a huge stone cross. "If thistruth ever dawns upon you, if ever your soul shrinks from the greedand hypocrisy of the world, if you tire of bloodshed in the name ofthe Cross and of villainy glorified by the name of Christ--the camp ofthe Duke of Spoleto will receive you, standing face to face with Godalone."

  With a hearty hand-shake they parted, and Francesco followed the roadpointed out to him by his companion of the morning hours.

  He had taken reluctant leave of the burly champion of a lost cause,whose very presence seemed to breathe the undefiled air of his greatnorthern forests, undefiled by the trend of human feet, the echoes ofhuman strife.

  And as Francesco gave a parting look to the high hills with theglitter of their birch-trees, he suddenly experienced an unexplainablemelting of his resentment against Ilaria.

  Something that he could neither describe nor account for, came intohis heart, a subtle emotion, that was like a faint perfume, or thesound of music from afar. He had hated her for her cold pride when heleft his home; yet, into this tawny cloud of hate flashed the vividstreak of a sudden recollection.

  Every faint zephyr reminded him of her charm; transfused itself intothe mellow brilliancy of her beauty, and Francesco suddenly surprisedhimself by taking her part against himself.

  And, what was more, he experienced a curiously pleasing sensation inthe act, and in this impulse towards tenderness discovered things thatwere strange and long forgotten.

  It was now the drowsy noon of day, and the wood was full of shadowsand of stealthy, creeping sunlight.

  He rested for a pace, then, refreshed by the siesta, he rode onward,other thoughts beginning to throng his mind.

  He was entering a sphere of action.

  Hitherto his life had been as that of a recluse. The peace of thecloister had enveloped him as a mighty cloak of safety. It haddominated him even to the point of total paralysis of his energies. Ofthe purpose of his journey h
e was still in ignorance. Yet, an innervoice whispered to him that it was the clarion call of the ChurchMilitant that had called him out of his repose.

  There could be no further compromise between the warring factions.

  The death-struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline had reached itshighest crest. Henceforth he would be the soldier of the Church. Achasm, no eternity could bridge, would gape between himself and thefriends of his youth. Thus Fate had willed it. Hurled into a seethingvortex, he was swept onward by the resistless tide.

  Now and again moments of resonant incredulity beat upon his brain.Why had his guiltless youth been condemned, why had he been sold intobondage?

  For a moment he started, retreating precipitately into the shadows.

  On the far bank of the river, whose glittering coils wound through theemerald depths of the valley, there, among the aspens, he descried acompany of horsemen, waiting, spears erect, helmets glittering, thewind tossing the dark manes of their horses.

  After a time they rode onward, and he, too, cautiously pursued hissolitary path.

  Evening had come.

  The rose had faded from the sky; but the horizon was flooded with palegold, in which shone the pellucid evening star. The air was filledwith the sweet chimes of innumerable bells.

  A group of towers rising above the distant hills cut sharply into theglory of the sky.

  Yonder lay Viterbo amidst her encircling walls: thence those carollingchimes, that so strangely stirred him, were singing their message ofpeace.

  His eyes were fixed afar.

  Would he turn back?--

  The west was smoking with golden vapors. The forests receding oneither hand revealed the hills and summits of the pontifical city. Theold Longobard walls curved away on each hand, for a long distance,high and grim, with battlements and towers, bare and menacing.

  For a moment Francesco paused; his eyes in the tracks of the sinkingsun, his lips tightly set, the nails of his hands driven into his ownflesh.

  Then with head high and erect, never a muscle betraying the anguish ofhis soul, he rode into the gates of Viterbo.