The Hill of Venus Read online

  CHAPTER I

  A LEGEND

  Out into the open caverns of the night Francesco and Ilaria rode.Their eyes still roved from the fading city to the great shipsstealing over the water. Their tall masts rose against the lastgleaming cranny of the west. Beyond them the mountains towered solemnand stupendous, fringed with aureoles of transient fire. Even in thehalf-gloom they could see a vague glittering movement on the slopesbehind Astura, a glitter that told of armed men marching from thehills, while shadowy ships seemed striding, solemn and silent, out ofthe night. A thousand oars seemed to churn the water. Sudden out ofthe gloom leaped the cry of a horn, its voice echoing from the hills.A vague clamor came from the shore. In Astura torches were gleaminglike red moths in a garden. From the castle the alarm bell boomed andclashed; then like giants' ghosts the ships crept out to sea, sableand strange against the fading west.

  As Francesco turned, sick at heart, he met Ilaria's eyes. Her sweet,proud face was near him once again, overtopping his manhood. Themoonbeams played upon her dusky hair.

  The silence was intense. Only the pounding of their horses' feet beatinsistent clamor into the stillness of the night.

  The trees and bushes began to mass themselves into denser shadowagainst the tinge of ghostly starlight.

  Now her face was very close to his.

  "At times I feel as if we had lived very, very long ago,--ages andages ago, when the world was young and only the moon and the starswere old. None walked upon the earth save we two and the world and itsbeauty was for us alone. Dusky forests covered the land, where strangeflowers bloomed, where strange birds sang. Beneath the sunken light ofa seared moon we walked hand in hand."--

  A great wave of misery swept over him.

  "I love you,--I love you," he whispered hoarsely. "Heart of my heart,that is the tale, a tale of three words, which is yet larger than anytale that was ever said or sung. Do you know what this must mean toyou and me?"

  She drew herself away from him.

  "You love me," she repeated, not questioningly, but as one stating afact. "Yet such love is not for you and me! All men, all circumstanceswould try to part us!"

  "But why? But why?" he cried. "Ilaria, I love you with a love thatmust last through life and death and all that lies beyond. So, since Iam what I must be, I place my life into your hands for good or evil."

  He kissed her, then looked hungrily into her eyes.

  She gave a wan smile.

  "Dear, do not grieve!" she said. "I have always loved you, love younow and think it no shame. Had you consented to become my lover, theman I love had died! What I love best in you, is what held you far!"

  "Ilaria!" he cried, loosening the horses' reins, "what is therebetween you and Stefano Maconi?"

  She breathed hard, and her face was very pale.

  "I too might have found forgetfulness where others find. That path wasnot for me. Francesco!" She laid her hand upon his own. "Look in myeyes and see!"

  That night they stopped at a wayside inn, as brother and sister,Francesco keeping watch outside, while Ilaria occupied the onlyguest-chamber of the tavern.

  Francesco's eyes stayed with her darkly, sadly, after she had goneinside. His tragic face seemed to look out of the night like the faceof one dead.

  He had tethered their horses some distance away, so that theoccasional tramp of their hoofs should fall muffled on the air. Thedeeply caverned eyes watching through the night seemed dark with aquiet destiny. The thin, pale face, white in its meditative repose,seemed fit to front the ruins of a stricken land.

  It was the face of a man who had watched and striven, who had followedwhat he held to be truth, like a shadow; who had found the light oflife in a woman's eyes, and saw that light slowly go out and vanish inouter darkness.

  There was bitterness there, pain, and the ghost of a sad desire thatwas pleading with death. The face would have seemed stern, but for acertain something that made its shadows kind.

  The woods about him seemed to swim in a mist of silver.

  Thus he sat through the night. He saw the moon go down in the west.Nothing earthly could come into the sad session of remembrances, thevigil of a dead past.--

  The early dawn found them again upon the road.

  The evening of another day descended; the green valleys were full oflight. Afar on the hills the great trees dreamed, dome on dome,touching the transient crimson of the west. Ilex and cedar stood,sombre giants, in a golden, shimmering sea. The eastern slopes gleamedin the sun, a cataract of leaves, plunging into gloom. The forestswere full of shadows and mysterious streams of gold, and a greatsilence shrouded the wilderness, save for the distant thunder of thestreams.

  Whenever Ilaria had grown tired, they had stopped in the shelter ofthe giant oaks, and partaken of the refreshments which Francesco hadtaken along. At high-noon they had reached what appeared to be adeserted castle, situated in the midst of a flowery oasis. Here theyhad dismounted and Ilaria had found great delight in roaming throughthe enchanted wilderness, calling each flower by its name and, now andthen, referring to the old rose-garden at Avellino, those happy daysof their guileless youth. Francesco's heart was heavy within him as hewatched the girlish figure, over whom sorrow had passed with so lovinga hand, idealizing and etherealizing her great beauty, never dimmingher sweet eyes. Then he had led their steeds down to the stream, whichpurled through the underbrush, and while they drank, he had seatedhimself on the bank and buried his head in his hands.

  As he came from watering his horses at the stream, he heard the soundof her footsteps amid the vines and pomegranates, chanting somesorrowful legend of lost love. Francesco had discovered a rough bridgeacross the stream, where giant boulders seemed to have been set asstepping-stones between the western grass-land and the castle. Therewas a narrow postern giving entrance through the walls. Francescostood at the gate and listened. Above the thunder of the foamingstreams her voice seemed to rise; even the great golden vault ofheaven seemed full of the echoes of her passionate song.

  He found Ilaria seated on the terrace-way, where the oleandersbloomed. Under the stone bridge the water foamed and purled, the fernsand the moss green and brilliant above the foam. About her rose theknolls of the gold-fruited trees. Further the forests climbed into theglory of the heavens.

  She ceased her chanting as Francesco came to her and made room for himon the long bench of stone. There was a tinge of petulance about thered mouth, the pathetic perverseness of a heart that loved not by thewill of circumstance. Ilaria was as a woman deceived by dreams. Shehad loved a dream, and since fate bowed not to her desire, she turnedher back in anger upon the world.

  How Francesco loved her, she knew full well. Yet she could not forgetthat he had chosen the garb he wore rather than herself. Her very lovefor him stiffened her perverseness and caused her to delight intorturing him.

  Francesco sat on the stone seat and looked up at her with questioninggaze. To Ilaria there was a love therein such as only once comes intoa woman's life, yet the look troubled her. She feared its appeal,feared the weakening of her own resolve.

  "Francesco," she said at last.

  He took her hand, his eyes fixed solemnly upon the face he loved sowell.

  "You will return to Naples?" she queried with a show of indifference.

  "Naples is far from me as yet," he said with bowed head.

  "Let me not hinder you,--since go you must."--

  "Are you so anxious to be relieved of me?" he said bitterly.

  "The fate of Conradino,--the fate of our friends hang in the balance."

  "I could not save them single-handed, though I would!"

  "Yet save them you must! You must redeem your past,--for my sake! Whynot part here, since part we must? There are other claims upon mysoul!"

  "Raniero Frangipani still lives--"

  "I shall never return to him!"

  He did not answer her for a moment. Her eyes were troubled, she lookedas one whose thoughts were buffeted by a strong wind. Above them thezenith mello
wed to a deeper gold, and they had the noise of the watersin their ears.

  "Ilaria," he said at last, "what would you with me? Am I not pledgedto guard your life,--your honor?"

  "Ah," she said, drooping her lashes, "I shall not clog your years!The springtime of life has passed,--for each of us!"

  "But not my love for you!" he cried fiercely, with the tone of a mantortured by suspense.

  Ilaria looked at him, and she saw the love upon his face, like asunset streaming through a cloud. She pitied him for a moment, buthardened her heart the more.

  "I am weary of the world," she said.

  "Weary, Ilaria? Are you not free?"

  She looked at him quizzically.

  "The wife of Raniero Frangipani?"

  "Have you not broken the chains?"

  "Mine the forging--mine the suffering," she said, almost with a moan."Though I have left him, I am not free. Nor are you! Though you burnyour garb--you are forever a monk--the slave of Rome! Who is free inlife?" she added, after a brief pause. "I am fearful of the ruffianpassions of the world,--the lusts and the terrors,--even love itself!Life seethes with turbulence and the great throes of wrath. I would beat peace,--I have suffered--God, how I have suffered!"

  Francesco rose up suddenly, and began to stride to and fro before her.He loved Ilaria, he knew it at this moment, with all the strongestfibres of his heart. He had hoped too much, trusted too much to thepower of his own faith. He turned and faced her, there, outwardlycalm, miserable within.

  "Must this thing be?" he asked her.

  There was such deep wistfulness in those words of his that she benther head and would not look into his face.

  "Francesco," she said, "I pray you, plead no further with my heart. Ishall turn nun,--there is the truth."

  "As you will--" he said, and a cord seemed to snap in his heart. "Itis not for me to parley with your soul, not for me to revive a pastthat had best never been!"

  Ilaria's gaze seemed far away. Her eyes, under their dark lashes,seemed like spring violets hiding in shadows.

  There was an infinite pride, an infinite tenderness in the wistfulface, as she turned to Francesco.

  "Ah," she said with a sudden kindling, "why has it been decreed thus?I think my whole soul was made for beauty, my whole desire born forfair and lovely things. You will smile at me for a dreamer,--dreamingstill, after the devastating storms of life have spent themselves overmy head,--but often my thoughts seem to fly through forests,marvellous green glooms all drowned in moonlight. I love to hear thewind, to watch the great oaks battling, to see the sea, one laugh ofgold. Now, every sunset harrows me into a moan of woe. Yet I can stillsing to the stars at night, songs such as the woods weave from thevoice of a gentle wind, dew-laden, green and lovely. Sometimes I feelfaint for sheer love of this fair earth."

  Francesco's eyes were on her with a strange, deep look. Every fibre ofhis being, every hidden instinct cried out in him to fold her in hisarms, to hold her there forevermore, safe from the world, from harm.But, as if she had divined his thoughts, she drew away from him.

  He stood motionless, with head thrown back, his eyes gazing upon thedarkening windows of the east. The sound of the running waters surgedin his ears; the colors and odors of the place seemed to faint intothe night. As for Ilaria, she stared immovable into space.

  At last she turned to Francesco.

  "And are they all,--all lost?"

  His lips hardened.

  "All, save the lords of Astura."

  Her face was pale as death.

  Francesco took her hands in his, bent over them and kissed thempassionately.

  A soft light shone in her eyes; yet underneath there was thatinexplicable perverseness in her heart that at certain moments makes awoman treacherous to her own desires.

  And Ilaria, as if to inflict a mortal wound on him she loved best,beckoned her own fate on with a bitterness that Francesco could notfathom.

  "Listen," she said. "You will go to Naples,--you may be of service tothe Swabian cause,--I must not--I will not--detain you,--besides,--Iam weary of the world,--I am weary of it all! Take me to San Nicandroby the Sea--there I shall strive to forget!"

  Francesco watched her, listening like a man to the reading of his owndoom. Ilaria did not look at him. Her head was bowed down. And as hesat there, gazing on the face he so passionately loved, her eyes, herlips, Francesco could hardly restrain himself from putting his armsabout her and holding her close, close to his heart. But an icy handseemed to come between them, seemed to hold them apart.

  "I will do as you wish!" he said.

  The west was an open gate of gold. The darkening forests were wreathedin veils of mist. The island with the dark foliage of its trees andshrubs, lay like some dusky emerald sewn on the bosom of a sablerobe.