The Hill of Venus Read online

  CHAPTER V

  THE RED TOWER

  With the first pulse of dawn in the East, Francesco was up and astirwith the zest of the hour. The woods were full of golden vapor, of dewand the chanting of birds. A stream sang under the boughs, purling andfoaming over a broad ledge of stone into a misty pool. A blue skyglimmered above the glistening tree-tops; the dwindling wood-waysquivered with the multitudinous madrigals of the dawn.

  A strange calm encompassed him, as he rode down the castle hill into awood of ilex where the dawn freshness still lingered. The rebellioustemper of his mood sank like a sea beneath the benediction of a god.His was not a soul that bartered through carven screens for penitenceand peace. His face caught a radiance from the vaultings of the trees.

  Around him ran wooded hills, streams and pastures, dusted thick withflowers. The odors of dawn burdened the breeze. In the distance thepurple heights of Viterbo faded into the azure of the sky.

  Southward he rode, towards Circe's land. The far heights bristled withwoodlands, shimmering with magic mystery under the rising sun. Theforest spires were smitten with a glamor of gold. Precipice and woodedheights were solitary as the sea itself.

  Francesco had left Viterbo exalted, liberated, glad. The prospect ofhigh endeavor had lifted him out of his melancholy. His mind, overawedby the spirit, was for the time set free from that intellectualrestlessness and moral incertitude, which against his will had grownup in him in the atmosphere wherein he moved.

  He was the messenger of the Church, bound for the Neapolitan court ona mission aiming to restore the Southern Italian cities to the controlof him who was the Vicar of Christ on earth. For a moment even theparadox did not distress him. Enough that he was under marchingorders, that the walls of Monte Cassino lay far behind him. Surely thetime was coming when loyalty to Church and country would be as one! Ifhe might only meet some great outward test, he mused, some greattrial, in which, to his own mind, as to the world, his convictionsmight shine forth!

  All he saw and heard confirmed the dark insinuations of the Duca diSpoleto; yet the fact of decision had soothed his bewilderment, andthere was hope of action ahead. Meantime he allowed himself to reactpassively on the impressions of the way. He was entertained withmaking acquaintances all along the route. Nothing in his gracefulaspect betrayed the religious, and people, not suspecting his errandtalked to him with the frankness to which excited times give birth. Onall lips there was the same tale; the cause of the League of Italiancities against the Pope was filling young and old with chivalricpassion. From the lower undulations of Tuscany, through the valleys ofthe Apennines, in the levels of Emilia, everywhere waved theFlorentine banner, blood red, with its flashing motto: "Libertas." Itfanned the fire of a patriotism which he was compelled to recognize aspure, of that proud spirit of independence and hatred of oppressionwhich has created the free cities of Italy. Not for the last timeunited protest against foreign tyranny was stilling petty strife andevoking the national consciousness, which even Dante was vainly tolong for. And Francesco's spirit was swift to respond to the call. Howotherwise? Was he not young? Was he not, too, a man, to whom countryand race were dear?

  But as he continued upon his way, as with his steady advance theforests gradually thinned and he began the descent into the plains ofthe Campagna, the image of Ilaria was constantly before him. Where wasshe? What was she doing? The thought brought with it a troubledbewilderment. Possessed like himself of a love of beauty, like himselfconsumed by a restlessness tremulous for something not quite clearlyunderstood, this fine and beautiful creature would be ill at ease inthe rough life of the feudal castle. That in the one case therestlessness might be reaching upwards, in the other, downwards.Francesco was too loyal to surmise. What good days they had known, heand she! Together they had watched the play of light on the mountainslopes, or over the great faint-gleaming lands within the soft curveof whose farthest blue they could divine the sea; together the twodark heads had bent over some vellum roll of Lariella's favorite poet.

  And again she stood before him; the perfectly arched eyebrows, thewide forehead, the sweet curves that had dimpled in girlish daysbeneath a shadowy crown, greeted him from a dusky frame. With theincreased perfection of her person went, he soon perceived, a trainedand practised instinct for all the graces of life. As she had appearedto him in Rome, she had been more charming than ever before.

  Too charming, alas! to remain unapproached by desire,--and tooreckless, perchance, to resist!

  With a jerk he reined in his steed.

  Of a sudden, the fears that had been squirming below consciousnessheaved up their heads and Francesco heard himself cry aloud:

  "God! If one's lady of the stars should prove a wanton!"--

  The uttered words struck cold upon his ear. He had stopped abruptly,throwing his open palm against the rough bark of a tree. The hurtmixed with the sound of his own voice.

  Dismounting, he permitted the disturbed animal to graze in an adjacentmeadow-land; then, invaded by the terror of the fact, he flung himselfface downward, pressing his cheek into the wet grass, recalling everytoo significant word and look of the Proserpina of yore, thrilled inhis senses by her last glance at him and troubled by a passion hedespised. Slowly to the first pain, with which the image of hisdream-lady faded, there succeeded another. The friend of his youth,the one woman he loved,--what was befalling her? Was she happy? Hadthe memory of the past faded from her mind? This pain was sharper thanthe other, though Francesco knew it not. It healed the pang of fleshlydesire.

  He called to his steed, mounted, and rode on with a new gravity.According to his curious wont in concrete experience, his relationswith Ilaria became the index to wider questionings.

  The old spell had been renewed, with a difference, and Francesco foundhimself trembling on the verge of a genuine passion. Through themystic reverence which he sought to cultivate towards his lady flashedthe allurement of the senses, and an occasional pang of reproach forhis own cowardly surrender. He reproached himself bitterly for it, ashe rode down the long hill that stretched in uneven rise and fall fromTivoli to Bracciano. Not that it troubled him, to find in his own lovean earthly taint; many he knew who had struggled, had conquered, notwithout salt-tears. But to distrust the brightness of his lady'simage; this surely in the annals of high love was a crimeunparalleled. He tried to cast the evil thought aside, to exalt atonce his love and his ideal. Breathing the morning air, the thingseemed possible. The situation helped; delicate enough to tickle hissense of honor, dramatic enough to absorb fancy.

  The Ilaria of the ilex-wood grew dim as a fading fresco to Francesco'smemory. He saw in her stead the little maid of the old castle ofAvellino, whose waywardness, whose bright and ready gaiety had seemedto his more despondent temperament a gift of enchanting sweetness.Thinking of these things, dubious traits vanished from her image; sheshone before his eyes, the piteous lady of his desire, and thedevotion for which he longed rose ardent within him. It brought afulness to the throat, to the eyes a smart which he coaxed into atear. Then he rode on in a happier mood. The dark trees, which crownedthe hill, were giving way as he descended to a wood of fresher green.

  It was now verging towards evening. Francesco had reached the top of alower ridge, from which the towers of Camaldoli, seen through a gap inthe trees, rose shadowy against the fading blue of the horizon. Thepath, hardly more than a foottrail, had been lonely. Now a priest cameambling up on mule-back, feasting his eyes on the pleasant woodland.At the sight of Francesco he dropped them on his breviary, and passedon without word or sign.

  For a moment the action struck him as a smart.

  The sight of the Office-book had opened the door of another chamber inthe house of Mind, that mysterious dwelling which always numbers roomswhich the owner has never entered, and others, closed in long disuse.

  At that moment the faint spark of devotion passed into a largeindifference. In his early youth Francesco had been in the habit--howacquired he could not have told--of repeating, whenever possible,
thecanonical hours. He had long abandoned the custom, as far as intentionwent; yet in some forgotten chapel of the mind, deserted of theconscious powers, the holy rites go on forever, biding the time oftheir recall. He was as one in the grip of a bitter wrong; forthrough the jostling images which filled his mind, the Officecontinued to ring in persistent undertones.

  The light between the great tree trunks grew from splendor tosplendor; flashing its level glories through the forest, transfiguringthe wood into flame. The sun had reached the rim of the horizon. Somefar memory of brilliance was stirring and seeking. A pageant, withal,but not that triumph of earthly love, so fair in the false twilight ofa night in the past, so wizened gray and lustful red in the light ofrecollection. The beams of the sinking sun were seven candle-sticks ofgold. What noble elders follow, crowned with fleurs-de-lis? Whatmystic chariot was this, within which rides a woman olive-garlanded,robed in hues of living fire and of the fresh spring grass? Memoryfound what it sought: but he who thus looked back into the past wasunaware that neither Lethe nor Eunoe might be his, who had not yetclimbed the Purgatorial Mound.

  The sun was sinking in the west when Francesco came to a ridge in thewoodland, which sloped southward from the high rocks. The path seemedto lead into the heart of a wilderness. Pine woods bordered it anddead bracken and whortleberry spread away under the stiff shadows ofthe silent trees. A thousand spires began to blacken against thesunset, and Francesco was aware that he was carrying a savage hunger.He had hoped for a manor-house or inn, or some woodman's lodge, butthe brambles that had rooted their long feelers across the path madeit appear that the track had not been used for years. So rough andtangled did it become that Francesco turned in among the trees, wherethe dense summer foliage of the beeches had kept the ground clear ofbrush and bramble.

  The prospect of a supperless night under the trees, even though he hadnever been clogged with heavy feeding at the monastery, madeFrancesco's thoughts hark back to the inn he had left at Viterbo, andhe regretted not having supplied himself with a stock of provisionsere he departed. Suddenly a distant sound made him pause and listen.The sound had a human note, and seemed nearer to him than he had atfirst imagined. He urged his steed on through the on-coming dusk. Itwas not long before the trees thinned before him and streams of goldenlight, slanting into an open space, gave the clearing the appearanceof a forest-chapel at sunset.

  From the open ground ahead came the incessant babbling of a thin andquerulous voice, that faltered between the prattling of a child andthe chatter of a mad soul, talking to the empty air. Sometimes therewas a croon in the voice, sometimes a touch of decrepit anger.

  A long, green bank, brushed by the boughs of the beech-trees, hid fromFrancesco the open ground that lay ahead of him. But, though it hidwhat he desired to see, the bank gave him the chance of approachingunobserved. Dismounting, he went up it on hands and knees, andinsinuated a cautious head between the turf and the branches of thebeeches.

  On the other side of the bank lay a stretch of undulating grass, thatrose into mounds and ridges, and dipped into shallow dykes, the moundsand ridges catching the fading sunlight, the hollows lying filled withthe shadows. The trunks of the forest-trees shut in this open space onevery side as with a palisade. On a mound in the centre stood crags ofruined masonry smothered in ivy, a broken squint in the wall lookinglike a rent in a cloud, through which the sunlight slanted.

  A little old woman, with hair as white as snow, and strange black eyesin a strange and wrinkled face, knelt there, polishing somethingsmooth and round that she held in her lap. The strange sight causedFrancesco to peer all the more intently, and he drew back with a quickgasp, when in the suddenly revealed white dome of the head, theshadowy eye-sockets, the glistening teeth in the bare jaws, herecognized the thing for what it was,--the head of a skeleton.

  As he sat there, considering the strange picture, Francesco for a timebecame oblivious of the cravings of his stomach. It was plain that thewoman was mad, for as she polished the skull, she chatteredincessantly. He asked himself, what was behind this madness. Death hadbeen here at some time, perhaps with violence, wiping out life andreason, leaving white hair and tragic madness in its wake. The furrowsdeepened above Francesco's eyes. He sat there in the deepening duskcalling up visions of ruffianism and wrong; the vision of this poorsoul's madness made him forget the dangers of the woods by night.Picking his way cautiously among the trees, he came within about fivepaces of her, before she lifted her head and saw him. Then he crossedhimself and gave her a "Pax Dei."--

  The little old woman stared at him and said nothing, her lower lipdrooping, her inert hands resting on the top of the skull.

  Her eyes puzzled Francesco, they were so black and bright, like theeyes of a bird. There was a startled wonder in them, as though she hadnever seen such a creature before. Then she suddenly wrapped the headin a bright-colored scarf which lay by her side, arose, and startedthrough the thicket, putting her arms around the thing as a motherwould hold a child.

  The sun was now below the hills and the woods were turning black.Francesco felt a vague shudder go through him as, following the woman,he arrived at the fragments of a ruin, that was smothered up in ivy.An arched doorway with broken pillars led into a vault in which therestood an open coffin. He saw her approach the receptacle for the dead,place the skull in the coffin and close the lid. Then she croonedsoftly to herself and hobbled away into the dusk.

  The thought that there must be a hut close by, struck Francesco withthe pang of the returning consciousness of hunger, when suddenly hesaw a light gleaming through the night as from a blood-red star.Straining his eyes, he peered through the dusk in the direction whencethe light shone.

  Under the shadow of a wooded spur that ran down into the valleyFrancesco saw a tower rising from an island in the centre of one ofthe great pools, of which the region abounded.

  The walls of the tower shone crimson in the light of the rising moon,glowing above the black water as though it had been built of iron atred heat. Thousands of willows and aspens grew about the mere, and inthe shallows were sedges and sword-leaved flags.

  Remounting his steed, Francesco resolved to ask for food and a night'slodging, rather than to traverse the forests at night. He was spent,and so was his steed, and the region was infested by all manner ofoutlaws, who made the roads insecure. As he approached the mere, alarge boat put out from a water-gate and crawled with long oars, likea beetle on the surface of the water. It disappeared in the night, andFrancesco decided to hail it upon its return, in the meanwhilewatching the red tower overhanging the pool. The reflection of thewalls in the rippling waters was a broken redness wrinkling intoblack.

  Francesco's wait was destined to be brief. The barge soon returned,and hailing the astonished oarsmen, he requested to be rowed acrossthe mere. They seemed to hold silent council, then, seeing it was butone man, they grumblingly ran out planks for Francesco's horse, and herode into the barge, remaining in the saddle and caressing his steed'sblack ears.

  At the water-gate a lean man in a black tunic stood waiting. He gavethe newcomer the blind stare of two watery eyes and, upon learning hisrequest, disappeared inside of the tower. After a wait of briefduration he returned, and, beckoning to Francesco to enter the darkgateway, called to some attendant, who took charge of his horse andthen led the guest to a dimly lighted chamber, in which he discoveredthe forms of a woman and a man. As Francesco appeared on thethreshold, the man precipitately arose and, whispering a few words inthe woman's ear, retreated by an opposite door. Francesco was soabsorbed in the scrutiny of his surroundings, that he paid little heedto the action of the one of the occupants. The castellan ushered himinto the chamber, closing the door behind him, and Francesco, makingthe best of a strange situation, approached the woman, who, recliningupon a dais, was regarding him intently, and preferred his request fora night's hospitality.

  "Our guest-table waits for strangers," she replied with a smile,bidding Francesco to take the seat vacated by the former occupant,then regardi
ng him with unconcealed interest.

  For a moment Francesco was mute; the suddenness of the transitiondeprived him of speech. Perhaps it was also her complete fearlessnessof manner, bare of every trace of aloofness, which had a somewhatdisconcerting effect upon one who had not known woman's society in along space of time, which caused the consciously awkward silence, asnow and then their eyes met.

  Her face had a singular charm. The lips were thin, tinged slightlywith scorn, yet tender when she smiled. The eyes were large, ofgreenish hue, and strange lights seemed to flash from their depths.There was a rich, round beauty upon the face; the rose tints of theskin warm, and sensuous as the bloom upon fruit. She was very slenderwhere the girdle ran, but big of bosom and long of limb.

  Unconsciously, as he joined her at the board and partook of food anddrink, she drew from him his tale. Her swift comprehension was as amagic mirror, wherein all creatures showed their thoughts. Not beingburdened with the reflective sense, he flung his words in thewelkin's face, with the candour of one who had no shame or fear.

  Between the woman's talking and his hunger, Francesco found littletime for reflection. He did not see a dim figure with a white facepass out behind the hangings, turning half furtively to look at thetwo at the high table, before it disappeared. There were no lights inthe hall, save a torch on a bracket by the screens. Francesco saw thesmoke wavering up into the gloom of the roof, and the way it vanishedinto nothingness made him think of the updrift of souls into thenight.

  He was silent a while, thinking of the little old woman and the skullshe cherished. The woman beside him felt his silence like the suddenclosing of a door.

  "You are thinking of some one?" she asked. "Or is it that you aretired?"

  Francesco held his head high, as one looking into the distance. Thereseemed no reason why he should conceal the goal of his journey.

  He stared at the flaring torchlight as he talked, but had he lookedinto the woman's eyes, he might have seen a sudden shiver of lightleap up into them. She became watchful, studying Francesco as hetalked, yet keeping a white calm.

  "You journey to Naples," she said at last with a strange smile whileshe caught his wrist, her tense arm quivering, her eyes looking intohis. "Do you not fear the contagion of that Court of Love?"

  Her face seemed suddenly to blaze with intense passion, her eyestaking a reddish lustre and shining like points of fire.

  "Hot blood and a cold ending," he said, looking past her, and she tookher hand from his wrist and sat silent and stiff, her eyes fixed uponhis face. Then she clapped her hands. An attendant conducted Francescoto a chamber which had been prepared for him, but as he passed out ofher presence, he still felt the burning touch of her fingers and thestrange look of her eyes.--

  Sleep would not come readily to Francesco that night, as he lay on thecouch prepared for him high up in the Red Tower. A full moon had risenand his wakeful mood shared the wonder and the mystery of the night. Adog bayed in the courtyard; the sound had but the effect ofintensifying the stillness. The mere lay like a pavement of blackmarble, with no wavelets lapping against the base of the tower.

  Francesco had lived through many strange moments, since he leftViterbo, and chance had thrown him with a singular suddenness into thelife that he sought. Vividly in the midst of his wakefulness he sawthe proud beauty of Ilaria as contrasted with the fierce pallor in theface of the lady of the castle, whose name he knew not. It seemed toFrancesco that these two confronted one another with a mysterioushatred. And he was conscious of desires that had been awakened withinhim, the heat of the blood, the simmering of the brain. The woman wasbeautiful, lithe and limp as a snake and he felt, that once she hadset her mind on gratifying a desire, resistance would be utterly invain.

  It was towards midnight when Francesco fell asleep, and his sleep hadlasted for about an hour when he started awake in bed with a loud cryand a flinging out of the hands. He sat up with a shiver of fear,awakened from a dream in which torrents of black water had poured downto smother him. A wind had suddenly arisen far off in the valley.Francesco heard it sweeping out of the night, whistling through theaspens and the willows until it struck the tower and moaned about it,like a desperate and dying thing clinging to something that it loved.A cloud passed across the face of the moon. In the court below thewatch-dogs set up a fierce howling.

  Francesco crossed himself, feeling the presence of evil in the moaningof the wind. The night had sprung from moonbeams and slumber into atumult of unrest. He heard the water splashing against the base of thetower.

  The moon came out again and Francesco rose from the bed and went tothe window. The mere was scarred with lines of foam and the aspenboughs glittered and clashed in the moonlight. Francesco, greatlyastonished, saw the barge was crossing the water with long, sinuousstrokes of the oar. In the barge there stood a figure on horseback,motionless and black as jet, save for a sparkle of moonlight about itshead. On the far bank among the aspen trees, a company of horsemenwaited, spears erect, helmets glimmering, the wind tossing the darkmanes of their steeds.

  The nose of the barge turned to the bank, and almost instantly thewind ceased, and a great calm fell. The night grew quiet. Thewatch-dogs turned into their kennels. The plash of the water againstthe tower grew less and less.

  Francesco saw the black horseman ride up the bank and join those whowaited. There was not a sound save the muffled beat of horses' hoofs,as they turned and rode away among the trunks of the aspen trees. Thebarge had thrust out again and was recrossing the mere, with wrinklesof silver running from its snout. Francesco watched it with a strangemisgiving. Who was the man who had disappeared the instant he hadentered the presence of the woman? Why were armed men coming and goingat this hour of the night? Why should the wind rise so suddenly anddie down again when the barge touched the further bank? Reality anddream mingled strangely in the deep of the night, and these happeningsmade him question his own eyes and ears.

  Again he betook himself to his rest, but it was some time ere sleepwould come to his eyes. And then it seemed not sleep, but rather adeep trance, that seemed to hold him enthralled, seemed to benumb hislimbs and deprive him of all energy, as if some opiate had beenmingled with his draught.

  He was suddenly conscious of an arch in the heavy stone, parting. Inthe opening there stood a woman, tall, lithe, slender. Instinctivelyhe knew it was the lady of the tower. She held a lamp behind the foldsof her skirt, and after she had entered his chamber the apertureclosed noiselessly behind her.

  Francesco stared at her wide-eyed, afraid to speak, afraid to move.Was it indeed the woman at whose side he had partaken of drink andfood,--or was it some restless phantom haunting the abode of formerdays? He saw the strange glitter of her eyes in the midst of thedarkness, for the moon was again hidden behind a cloud; he heard thesudden shrill clanging of a bell from some distant cloister orconvent.

  "You are awake!" she said in a whisper.

  And suddenly the intimate dimness of the room was surcharged withfaint perfumes, as the woman slowly walked towards him, looking at himsteadily with deep, long breath.

  He leaped up, sitting on the edge of the couch. Her fine finger tipsrested on his shoulders, preventing him from rising. He saw thewhiteness of her arms, bare to the shoulders; his eyes rested on thesoft curves of the lithe body, under the clinging, transparent textureof a gown vying in whiteness with her skin. He looked up and trembled.

  "What did you see, my friend?" she queried, bending over him.

  "The wind waked me at midnight," he replied evasively.

  The pressure of her fingers increased.

  "What did you see?"

  He noted the strange glitter in her eyes. The strange perfume whichclung to her, crept to his brain.

  "I saw armed men waiting among the aspens; a man on a horse ferryingacross in the barge."--

  His straightforwardness sent a momentary shadow across her face andfor a moment she shut her lips tightly. But a strange light played inher eyes, as she said:

 
"Friends come and go in the night. There may be pain in their passingto and fro. The man you saw was my brother!"

  She spoke with a level and unhesitating voice, yet in her eyes theregleamed a vague smouldering of unrest.

  "I do not even know your name," he said, longing to clasp those firmwhite hands which were so close to his eyes.

  "What is a name?" she shrugged, then, with a laugh, she added: "Hasthe night taken away your courage?"

  Their eyes met.

  "What is there to be afraid of?" he queried tremulously.

  Again her eyes thrilled him.

  "I have tricked you!"

  He started to rise, grasping the white soft hands in his own andrelinquishing them the next moment, as if he had touched fire. Sheheld him easily with a glance of her strange eyes.

  "What do you want of me?" he stammered. "Why are you here?"

  "Come,--let me show you!" she said, taking him by the hand and leadinghim towards the window which looked out upon the mere.

  He followed her resistlessly.

  In a flash he felt her arms about him, drawing him close to her. Shethrew words in his face, with a fierce, intimate whispering.

  Francesco recoiled, as if he had been bitten by a snake. But the magicwas too strong for his starved senses; ever and ever she caught himtowards her, kissing him with moist, hungry lips, while her eyesscintillated in strange lights that made him dizzy, and her arms werecoiled about him with a strength he had not guessed.

  With a choking outcry he succeeded at last in releasing himself, andturning to the door, tore at it, and found it fastened on the otherside.

  He stood there, facing her, white with fear, anger, passion. He knewif she willed to make him her own, he was lost, and she came slowlytowards him, with the soundless tread of a tigress who has corneredher prey.

  She was regarding him with a strange amused smile, then she held outher white arms.

  "Are these charms so poor, that they must go begging?" she said with areturn of the sardonic glitter in her eyes.

  "In the name of mercy--go!" he stammered with blind pleading eyes.

  "The halo cannot fail you," she replied with a laugh, as her glanceswept him from head to foot. "Fool--fool!" She placed her handstightly about his throat, looking into his eyes.

  "Should you learn at the court of Naples to value the earthly joysmore than the heavenly,--return,--and be forgiven!"--She kissed himand sent him reeling against the wall.

  For a moment he stood paralyzed, facing her in the darkness, while herlaughter, high and shrill, resounded in his ears. He rushed at her,tried to detain her, as she reached the arch. But as the panel parted,a figure suddenly came between him and the woman. The moon had emergedfrom the cloud, behind which it had been hidden. Francesco recoiledand staggered back into his chamber, as if he had been dealt a suddenblow. For, swift as the shadow had come between them, ere the panelclosed behind the woman--he had recognized Raniero Frangipani.

  End of Book the Third.

  Book the Fourth

  THE PASSION