The Hill of Venus Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  THE PAWN OF THE CHURCH

  When Francesco arrived on the height it was the hour of the closing ofthe city-gates and he took lodging at an inn situated near the citywalls.

  He caught his breath the next morning at the imposing aspect of theplace.

  In the young sunshine its many towers were no longer phantom intruderson the sky, but a dominant fact. The machicolated heights, theencircling ramparts, the stern outlines of the fortress-palace of thepope, rose proudly impregnable in the air.

  On the broad highways from Umbria, Tuscany and Romagna, even at thisearly hour, an almost endless stream of humanity was moving. Many aclerk and prelate was there, superbly arrayed, mounted on steeds gaywith princely trappings. Fair women took in the freshness of the day.Pilgrims with staff and shell trudged merrily or wearily on. Jewishmerchants, serious of face, bore packs containing valuablemerchandise. For Viterbo lay on the highway, linking Northern andSouthern Italy, and Europe, in motion on its way to Rome, movedincessantly through its streets. The image of Rome, in her desolation,recurred, vague as a ghost, to Francesco's mind and vanished beforethis city of the present, unhaunted as yet by memories, rising radiantin the morning air.

  Treading the streets, the life which he for the past weeks had soeagerly accepted, suddenly seemed alien to the whole old order ofthoughts and feelings which Francesco represented.

  Mechanically almost he dropped on his knees before an altar, gazing atthe pictured face of a kneeling woman whose eyes were filled with purecompassion. Nevertheless, he allowed himself to be diverted by theinterest of his surroundings, while moving towards the presence of thehead of Christendom.

  Pope Clement IV gave audience in a high apartment, overlooking thewinding road to Rome. The sunlight, streaming through the window arch,revealed the man with much distinctness.

  The Pontiff was slight and delicate of build. His face bore the stampof a high order of intellect; his features were those of anaristocrat. Disease of body was plainly portrayed by his shadowycheeks, much lined for his fifty-odd years. Disease of soul showednone the less plainly in a troubled lift of the eyebrows, thatimparted to the face a look of search, expecting yet perhaps desiringno answer. The countenance withal was unmistakably of the legal cast,self-contained, alert, studious. On the whole, Francesco's firstimpression upon being conducted into the presence of the Father ofChristendom, was of the unconscious dignity of high place, blendedwith something too complex for analysis.

  Many cardinals and princes of the Church, many orders ofmonks, noblemen and foreign ambassadors were assembled in theaudience-chamber of the Pontiff. There was a restlessness among them,which immediately impressed itself upon the newcomer.

  Surrounding the pontifical dais were Antonio Pignatello, Cardinal ofCosenza and private secretary to His Holiness; Don Stefano, General ofthe Carthusians, Master Raimondo, General of the Dominicans, and anindividual who was incessantly fingering his beads, whose bentcountenance, sallow features, sunken eyes, thin lips and claw-liketalons revealed a combination of hypocrisy and cunning, such as butone man could lay claim to, and he the champion of Pope Clement IV,Charles of Anjou, brother of King Louis of France.

  "Yet--notwithstanding your plea, you have not yet seen the towers ofthe Holy City established on earth among the children of men," thePontiff turned to the Provencal.

  "I have had no visions," replied the latter with a quick lift of theeyes.

  "Nor I, beloved son," said the Pontiff, "save as the spectacle of lifeis an ever changing vision. Have you any conception, I wonder, of itsinterest and significance in these latter days?"

  "Let me remind you, Holy Father, Benevento lies behind us," snarledthe champion of the Church. "Would your black crows have carried theday without the chivalry of Provence?"

  The Pontiff ignored the insolence of the speech.

  "Truly--Benevento lies behind us," he said. "Nevertheless I may notsay, here is the hand of God, and there it is withheld. The schism haswidened; the way of the truth is more obscure than ever; the Churchhas grown to be the very scorn of men, because of the instruments sheemploys,--she is forced to employ!"

  The Pontiff's tone had grown hard and there was a steely glitter inhis gray eyes.

  Charles of Anjou fingered his beads more swiftly, while his thin lipsstretched into a hard, straight line.

  "'The end justifies the means!' has long been the maxim of the princesof the Church," he said, while his eyes seemed to rest on the tips ofhis buskins, protruding from under the monkish garb he affected.

  The Pontiff hastened to explain.

  "One may not cleanse a pigsty with a silver fork. Yet--shall thePatrimony of St. Peter be sacked and burned in the name of the Cross?Shall violence, cunning and greed reign unchecked, that the Beast maybe glorified?"

  "Yet the Beast may not gird its loins without drink or food,--and theHalo makes but a thin mantle!" snarled the Pontiff's crusader.

  Clement raised a thin, emaciated hand.

  "What a mass of falsehoods and hypocritical phrases have againassailed our ear! Our dearly beloved son in Christ boasts of his loveand veneration for the Church, while those under his command arepillaging the sanctuaries!"

  The beads passed nervously through Anjou's fingers.

  "These reproaches, Holy Father," he said with a sepulchral voice,"touch me very deeply. The host must be fed, and their zeal for thecause of Holy Church may lead them to mistake the cornfields of therighteous!"

  The Pontiff bowed.

  "Your crusades against the infidels seem to have blurred your vision,beloved son!"

  "You speak of my youthful glories, Holy Father," replied Charles ofAnjou with a leer. "Many years have since gone by, and they sleep withmy youthful sins!"

  "That must be a wide berth that enables them to find place side byside," retorted the Pontiff.

  Then, with a nameless shrug, he turned to the Cardinal of Cosenza.

  "Has the messenger returned from Astura?"

  Instead of the Cardinal, Anjou made reply.

  "Wherein would treason benefit the Frangipani? They hold their castleas fief of the Empire, and the coffers of the Church are dolefullyempty."

  The Pontiff turned to the speaker.

  "Treason,--beloved son? A harsh word indeed! Were breaking with asinful past to be stigmatized in such wise, our indulgences wouldindeed go begging and St. Peter tire at his watch!"

  Charles of Anjou gave a significant shrug.

  "Will the Frangipani exchange a distant master for one hovering overtheir rock?"

  The Pontiff waved the question aside.

  "The bait were hardly tempting!"

  The small eyes of Anjou met those of the Pontiff.

  "What is the bribe?" he queried brutally.

  Clement raised his hands in abhorrence. A lawyer and a diplomat, theFrenchman's brutal frankness jarred on his nerves.

  "What of Astura as his own--to have and to hold?" he said at last withbated breath.

  A sudden sinister gleam from Anjou's eyes betokened his understanding.

  "The dead are all immortal," he said with a shrug.

  A sudden commotion, the sound of voices in the antechamber, produced amomentary lull in the conversation, and at the beck of the Pontiff theCardinal of Cosenza rose to inquire into the cause of the disturbance.

  After a time he returned and whispered some words into Clement's ears.

  The Pontiff was seen to start; and to look from one to the other ofthose present. Then he nodded and, through the door of theaudience-chamber, Francesco was ushered into the august presence ofthe Father of Christendom.

  He was received with a courteous quiet, the Pontiff and those abouthim regarding him curiously.

  Francesco advanced at a signal from the Cardinal of Cosenza, who actedas master of ceremonies, knelt and kissed the Pontiff's feet. He feltsomewhat dazed by the unwonted presence and awaited in silence thePontiff's question. In a fleeting glance he had taken in hissurroundings, but as, when he rose f
rom his kneeling position, hisgaze encountered that of the Pontiff's minion, there swept over himsuch a wave of rage, horror and shame, that all the color left hisface, and his hands were clenched, as if he would spring at the cowledform by the Pontiff's side and strangle him. He restrained himselfwith an effort, but the gesture had not passed unremarked by Anjou,who was engaged in sedulously counting his beads and fingering theLeaden Lamb about his neck, while he drew the cowl somewhat deeperover his face.

  Francesco, turning to the Pontiff, was struck by the reticentshrewdness in Clement's eyes, the expression of his face, the calm,unmoved poise of body and head.

  It crossed his consciousness in a flash that it was possible for thisman to impress his will upon a world, no matter if that worldrebelled.

  "Your name?" the Pontiff spoke at last.

  "Francesco Villani," came the reply, given with bated breath.

  Clement stared into space as one endeavoring to recall a memory.

  "Villani,--Villani--" he muttered to himself with an absent air."Where have we heard the name before?"

  The Cardinal of Cosenza leaned forward, his lips at Clement's ear.

  The Pontiff nodded.

  "We remember,--we remember,--the illegitimate offspring of GregorioVillani, Grand Master of the Knights of the Hospital!"

  The words had been spoken with intent of being heard by all present.

  Francesco straightened himself to his full height.

  His eyes blazed as he faced the Pontiff.

  "Your Holiness need not proclaim my father's shame to the ears ofChristendom! Let it suffice, that I am atoning for his fault,--iffault it was!"

  There was a heavy silence, during which the Pontiff and Charles ofAnjou exchanged significant glances.

  They had not remained unremarked by Francesco, and the spark ofrebellion which had slumbered in his soul all these long and wearymonths was fanned to devouring flame, as with inexpressible loathinghis gaze rested upon the man who was the abomination of Christendom,the instrument of the Pontiff.

  "What proof have we that you are atoning for the transgressions of onewho passed from earth in mortal sin?" the Pontiff queried after apause, while a fatuous smile played about Anjou's lips.

  "The garb I wear," Francesco flashed. "The garb your Holiness hasimposed!"

  The Pontiff regarded him quizzically.

  "You have served your novitiate?"

  "At Monte Cassino!"

  "How fares the Prior? It is many moons since we have visited hismountain-heights!"

  Francesco gave a brief account of his life at the cloister, up to thetime when he had received the summons to Rome.

  Clement listened warily, the lawyer in his expression uppermost.

  "You come from Rome?"

  Francesco shivered at the memory.

  "From Rome!" he replied curtly.

  "What of the city?"

  "King Conradino lords the Capitol!"

  "You have seen the Pretender?"

  "We have stood face to face."

  "What is he like?"

  Francesco gazed from Clement to Anjou

  "A man!"

  The Pontiff nodded, as if he approved the observation.

  In the man Francesco had long discovered the judicial mind, and thediscreet intelligence of the trained statesman.

  From the shadows the Pontiff was warily regarding the sun-steepedfeatures of the young monk.

  At last, his voice sinking down to its accustomed calm, he said, as iffeeling his ground:

  "Does the new life satisfy your soul?"

  The restless, ceaseless pain of longing again knocked at Francesco'sheart, and with it returned the old spirit of rebellion, which hadpossessed him in the days of his novitiate at Monte Cassino. And,unconsciously, he repeated the words of the Duke of Spoleto:

  "Men make a patchwork quilt of life, and call the patchwork religionand law."

  An audible gasp was wafted to his ears.

  Clement opened his hand and dropped the little crucifix, which he hadbeen fingering during their talk, with a gesture of rejection, on thefloor behind him. The palm of the hand, still stretched and open, boresharp red marks. The point of the cross had evidently just beenpressed into it with convulsive energy.

  "Obedience is holiness," the Pontiff said at last, with a sweep of hishand.

  Francesco discovered himself unwittingly gazing in the direction ofAnjou. The Pontiff intercepted the look. Perhaps there was a reasonfor his question which Francesco was far from guessing, as he suavelysaid:

  "You do not conceive, my son, that the Church can err in the choice ofher instruments?"

  "I have heard of some striking instances of the readiness of theservants of the Church," he replied with a straight look at Anjou, "tosuppress the spirit when it suited them to do so."

  At these words a change, visible even in the shadows, crossed thefeatures of the Provencal leader.

  "The spirit is capable of various interpretations," he snarled with avicious glare at the young monk, whose air of loathing had stung himto the quick.

  "But not the instrument," Francesco retorted hotly.

  Clement at this point thought fit to interpose, yet not without asting of rebuke to the brother of Louis of France.

  "The Church requires not her subjects to think for her, nor tointerpret her spirit. What she exacts, is unfaltering obedience!"

  There was something in the Pontiff's tone which startled Francesco. Hewas conscious that Clement avoided touching on the business of hissummons to Rome, as if to force him to betray his own trend of mind.Yet he shrank unwittingly from uttering the words which hovered on hislips. He felt instinctively there was no mercy within these walls, andat the thought he was seized with a secret dread.

  The silence at last grew irksome. Francesco felt a cold hand clutchingat his heart.

  If the sacrifice had been in vain! If he had been tricked into sellinghis birthright, tricked into bartering his happiness for a shroud! Hefelt the flood-gates of his memory re-open; he felt the portals of thepast, which had been locked and barred, swing back upon their hinges,grating deep down into his soul. The mad longing for the world boundedback into his heart.

  Still the Pontiff did not speak.

  "I have been summoned from Monte Cassino," Francesco at last spokewith an assumption of courage which he was far from feeling. "I amwaiting the commands of your Holiness!"

  The Pontiff nodded.

  "These are grievous times indeed; the Church must needs summon herfaithful about her, to become militant in her service!"

  "What would your Holiness have me do?" said Francesco.

  "The service that will be demanded of you is to be commensurate withthe boon you have come to ask at our hands," Clement replied at last.

  For a moment Francesco stared speechless at the Pontiff. Clement hadread the very depths of his soul.

  "When I entered the monastic life," he said at last, "it wasstipulated that at the expiration of a certain period the burdenshould be lightened."

  "Conditions?" replied Clement, with a slight contraction of the brows."The Church demands unconditional surrender! Are you so very anxiousto be relieved of the garb which befits the servant of God?"

  "There are various ways to serve the Church," Francesco replied in ahard voice.

  Clement bent serious brows upon him.

  "We must subdue the mind for the sake of the mind! The boon you areabout to ask might be granted--in return for some signal service tothe Church!"

  Francesco's eyelids narrowed.

  "And this service,--what is it?"

  He saw the Pontiff and Charles of Anjou exchange glances.

  What new traffic were they about to propose to him?

  He looked about the circle of ecclesiastics.

  He met but the reflection of the Pontiff's quizzical glances.

  "We require a special envoy to Naples, to calm the minds of thedisaffected. Our choice has fallen upon you. On the result of yourmission depends the granting of
the boon."

  Francesco made no reply.

  What could he urge in his own behalf that was not defeated in theutterance?

  He was no match for Clement in subtlety and, though he could notfathom the reasons governing Clement's choice of himself to treat, ashe surmised, with the Neapolitans, he recognized therein the desire onthe part of the Pontiff to strike his enemies through one of theirown.

  "What are the commands of your Holiness?" he said at last.

  "You will receive your instructions from the Cardinal of Cosenza," thePontiff replied calmly.

  "Your audience is concluded," the latter whispered into Francesco'sear. He approached the pontifical dais as one in a dream; and, afterthe customary genuflection and the ceremony of kissing the Pontiff'sfeet, he passed out of the audience-chamber into the sun-fraught airof noon, the Pontiff's "Go in peace!" still ringing in his ears.

  The personality of Clement had not passed from him without a deepimpress. Here was a man created in the type of his predecessors,Alexander IV and Urban IV, a man who shrank from nothing that wouldadvance the cause of the Church.

  Thinking of the audience which had just come to a close, a heavy senseof defeat weighed Francesco down. His resistance had been utterlyswept away; in vain had he waited for a power that did not come touplift him and release.

  The chasm between the life of the present and the life of the pastgaped ever wider. By some invincible force he was being hurried onwardto a dark and uncertain goal.

  In the language of the East, he had his fate bound about his neck.There was no escape for him. Vainly as he might cast about him for ananchor, he saw nothing encompassing him but a great void. From the oldlife he was barred forevermore. The future appeared as a country bleakand unredeemed.

  Towards evening he rode out of the gates of Viterbo. From its mountainheight the pontifical palace frowned upon the world below with sterndefiance, its architecture expressive of the asceticism, defensive ofthe soldier, rather, than the asceticism, contemplative of the saint.

  Thus he rode out into the deepening dusk.