The Hill of Venus

CHAPTER IV

THE CALL

DURING the months that followed, it had become Francesco's habit to spend most of his leisure time in loneliness on the spot whence he had beheld the passing of Conradino's iron-serried hosts and where he had received Ilaria's message. The monks rarely visited the place, and Francesco's solitude was undisturbed. He never prayed, nor even held a religious thought while there; but the place was well chosen for meditation. Situated upon the very summit of the hill, whose slopes were bathed in purest air and sunlight, his gaze could easily traverse the intervening space and follow the shining course of the river down to the blue waters of the lake of Nemi, many miles away. Following the same direction still, till vision was repulsed by the barrier of shadowy hills, one knew that just beyond lay the sunny Apulian land, the spot to which Francesco's eyes ever turned; towards which once in a passion of rebellion, he had strained his arms, then let them drop again, helpless at his sides, acknowledging his defeat.

Autumn and winter had come and gone. Again spring was in the land, and with it at last an evening came; it was Saturday, a night of devotions and special Aves at the cloisters. The holy office was still in progress, and Francesco, kneeling in the last row of full-vowed brethren, was striving to turn his thoughts from useless unhappiness, watching the play of the candlelight over the high-altar. Thus he failed to hear the opening of the outer door, and the rapid steps that passed and returned by the corridor. It was but a lay brother, and not a monk turned his head. But when a murmured message was delivered in the Vestibulum, when the jingle of chain-armor and the heavy tread of nailed feet came echoing towards them, there was a general lifting of eyes, a craning of necks and a perceptible increase in the speed of the responses.

The services ended, the monks betook themselves to their confessionals. A small number still lingered about the door, waiting the possible arrival of Romuald, the Prior, of whom they might incidentally learn the title and quality of the stranger. Francesco had retired into a dim corner, seemingly indifferent to the advent of the visitor. This appearance was not so much affectation, as a great struggle to crush back the hope that would sometimes slumber, but never die, within his breast.

Presently, however, there was a stir in the arch of the corridor, caused by the advent of one of the Prior's attendants, who stopped still to look about the chapel. Finally, discovering what he sought, he approached Francesco, beckoning to him to follow him.

Francesco rose and came forward, his knees shaking, with wildly beating heart. He followed his guide without looking to right or left, walking very slowly, that he might regain something of his self-possession. Had the summons come at last? Concerning its import he did not speculate, so it sent him into a sphere of action, away from this self-centred life at the cloisters, the very calm of which offered no haven for the storm-tossed soul.

When he entered the Prior's presence, his manner was impassively expectant. Romuald rose slowly from his place, an overpowering, almost conscience-stricken pity in his heart, which refused to come to his lips, as on the face of the young monk there was unveiled at last all the majesty of the bitter loneliness which he had suffered so long and so silently.

When the Prior turned to Francesco, his words dropped monotonously from his lips.

"A messenger has arrived from His Holiness, Pope Clement, summoning you to Rome! You will depart on the morrow!"

Francesco bowed his head in silence and withdrew. As one in a trance he went out into the empty corridor. At last the call had come: To Rome, – to Rome! He would leave the dreary solitude of these mountain-heights, leave their purity and sanctity and peace for the strife and turmoil of a fevered world. To Rome, – to Rome! His pulses beat faster at the thought. Thither had those preceded him, among whom he had spent the golden days of his youth; thither she had gone whose image filled the dark and desolate chambers of his heart; now lost to him for aye and evermore! And thither Conradino was marching with his iron hosts to claim the dominion of the Southlands, his inheritance, his very own! To Rome, – to Rome! Once it had been the dearest wish of his soul. Now an unspeakable dread seized him with the summons. He was the bondsman of the Church, – her shackles were pitiless. Every feeling must be stifled, the voice of the heart hushed in her grim service. —

Francesco entered his cell; a moment later the cell was in darkness. But could Francesco's open eyes have served the purpose of a lantern, a dozen monks might have read by their light, unceasingly, till matins.

CHAPTER V

THE DELLS OF VALLOMBROSA

IT was a windless morning. Stillness and sunlight lay upon the world, when on the back of his own good steed, which had seen heavy service since last he rode it, Francesco bade farewell to the cloisters of Monte Cassino. Though hampered by his monk's habit, he sat in the saddle with the poise of a nobleman, as he gathered up the reins. With a cut upon his horse's neck and a word in the pointed black ear, he was off at a swinging gallop, out and away through the open gate, past the walls of his prison, giving never a thought to the gaze from twenty pairs of curious eyes which followed him until he was out of sight.

Free of the cloister! Oh, the rare intoxication of that thought! And quickly upon it came the memory of that other departure, when he had turned his back on the south, had strained his eyes towards the setting sun. Then spring had awakened in the land, everything was promise, save the life upon which he was entering. The spring had gone, and with the spring the happiness of his life. A summer landscape stretched before him; and he rode towards the setting sun.

Francesco rode slowly enough. The fresh, free air came joyously to his nostrils. His eyes, less sunken than they had looked for months, though he knew it not, were seeking out those small tokens of beauty, which friendly nature gladly exhibits to so devoted a seeker. Two shrines had he already passed without a Pater Noster, filled with a quick, delirious happiness, which rose continually from his heart to his lips.

Through the long, strange, secluded days at Monte Cassino, he had become aware of a profound respite from the ferment of thought. On this morning, however, the sense of self, with all its complications, had utterly vanished. The insistent illusions of the past seemed to have left him. In the high solitudes in which he had been moving, living inviolate behind a stillness not of this world, he had wandered alone, yet not alone, through the spiritual landscape of which Fate had opened the portals.

Of the monks he had left he thought without regret. They were not remarkable people, only ordinary men, for whom the veil that separates the seen from the unseen had become thin and sheer. But if not remarkable themselves, a remarkable force was playing through them. Dreamers, yet carrying in their dream the memory of the world's sorrow, they had gained high victory from long meditation on redemption accomplished, and on the spiritual glory that transcends. Yet the knowledge, that by the way of renunciation one comes to the way of fulfillment, had not yet dawned upon Francesco.

The sun, long clear of the tree-tops, had reached the valleys, and, as he gazed, the light between the great tree-trunks grew from splendor to splendor, and flashed its level glories through the forest, transfiguring the leaves to flame. The dark trees, which crowned the hill, were giving place, as he descended, to woods of fresher green. In the grass below cyclamen hung their heads dew-freighted. The birds were at matins. Through the soft foliage the sky shone, a lustrous amethyst.

His path struck the main road presently. He wound through an enclosed valley, fairly wide. The world was all awake. The summer sun, though young in the heavens, already scorched where it fell. As he passed on, the unfailing peace of the woods received him, that deep tranquillity of verdurous gloom which absolves the wanderer from the faint glare of noon. He saw himself once more a tiny boy, and the years between shrank into a brief bewilderment in his mind. Dreaming dreams long forgotten, he rode on. A wandering sunbeam fell through the branches. For a moment everything seemed withdrawn: fret, fever, confusion not only exiled, but forgotten among the whispering leaves. The purity of a great silence was encompassing a great surrender.

Behind him, straight above, the Castle of San Gemignano cut abruptly into the main curve of the sky. Below, a trifle to the south, a sister castle, beneath which a few affrighted houses closely huddled, rose against the purple mass of Monte Santa Fioré. But Francesco was looking away and out over the desolate sun-lit lands, bordered by sere brown oak woods, and gray olive hills gilded by the sun.

Before him stretched the fields and oak woods and vineyards of Umbria, a wide undulating valley, enclosed by high rounded hills, bleak or dark with ilex, each with its strange terraced white city, Assisi, Spello, Spoleto and Todi. The Tiber wound lazily along their base, pale green, limpid, scarcely rippling over its yellow pebbles, screened by long rows of reeds and tall poplars, reflecting dimly the sky and trees, pointed mediaeval bridges, and crenelated round-towers.

Barracks of mercenary troops, strongholds of bandit-nobles, besieged and sacked and heaped with massacre by rival factions, tangled brushwood of ilex and oak, through which wolves and foxes roamed in quest of their ghastly prey, now gave evidence of a life other than he had dreamed of even on his mountain height. Burned houses and devastated cornfields testified to the late presence here of the Wolf of Anjou. The mutilated corpses along the road offered a ghastly sight, which the scattered branches of the mulberries tried in vain to conceal from the wanderer's gaze.

Grieved by the sight that met his progress through devastated Italy, resignation schooled Francesco's lips to silence. None the less there sang irrepressibly in his heart the song of the open road. There is exhilaration in any enlargement, however painful the personal experiences of the past months began to appear, a symbol at most in miniature of the turbulent drama of the age. All he saw and heard, confirmed the dark situation he had heard described; yet the fact of decision had soothed his bewilderment. There was hope of action ahead. On all lips there was the same tale of the unbearable tyranny of the Provencals, of their mean extortions, their cold sensuality, their cruelty past belief. Everywhere he found the smouldering fire of a righteous wrath, everywhere the vaulting flames of a high resolve. The appearance on the soil of Italy of Conradino was filling the adherents of the Swabian dynasty with chivalric passion. And Francesco – finding his own spirit swift to respond to the call – was suddenly reminded that he had been sold to the Church, who protected the tyrant, to the Church whose passive servant he was, to do as he was bidden by the Father of Christendom. And, with the thought, a dread crept cold among his heart-strings. His friends were phantoms in the sunshine, – a vast gulf lay between them, now and forevermore.

He was about to be forced into the actual world of practical affairs and ecclesiastical politics. The shock was rude; he could not as yet relate the two worlds in his mind, nor project force from one into the other. What was the Pontiff's desire with regard to himself? Why had he summoned him to Rome, where he must needs meet anew those in whose eyes he had become a traitor, a renegade? Had he not suffered enough? Was the measure of his humiliation still incomplete? – And Ilaria – Ilaria —

Francesco had ridden all day, stopping for refreshments only, when the need was most felt, or his steed demanded some rest.

It was a golden evening when he rode into the dells of Vallombrosa. Everything seemed golden, – a soft and melting gold. The sky, the air, the motionless holm-oaks, the ground itself, overgrown with short, tawny moss, beat back a brilliant amber light. The sky flamed orange and saffron, and the distant lake of Bolsena rolled as a sea of fire. A company of pilgrims proceeded through the wood, illumined by level, golden rays, that struck under the high branches, turning the beds of fern to pale green flame, and the tree-trunks to unsubstantial light. The fever of the noon-tide had become tranquil in the evening glow. In their wake a confused mass of men and weapons flashed suddenly into the sunlight. Another procession with its gay dresses and colored tapers gleamed like a rainbow among the branches.

To Francesco, always delighting in pageantry, the charm of the scene tingled through consciousness almost as powerfully as the Masque of the Gods he had witnessed on that never-to-be-forgotten night at Avellino. And the same dull particular pain shot through his heart, intensified a thousand times, as they came nearer through the sun-lit forest-aisles, – a dark horseman, superbly clad in white velvet, and beside him the exquisitely moulded, stately form of a woman, both mounted on palfreys magnificently caparisoned, and followed by a company of young cavaliers, giddy and gay in their festal array. But every drop of blood left Francesco's heart, and his cheeks were pale as death, as in the woman who laughed and chatted so gaily he recognized Ilaria Caselli, – in the man by her side Raniero Frangipani. He would have wheeled his steed about and fled, but an ice-cold hand seemed to clutch at his heart, benumb his senses and paralyze his endeavors. His eyes were riveted on Ilaria's face; the evening air, cool and gentle, had waked a sweet color on her cheeks, and her dusky eyes seemed to reflect the dancing motes of light which permeated the ether. So bewildering, so intoxicating was her beauty, that Francesco fairly devoured her with his gaze, as one doomed to starvation would devour with his eyes the saving morsel which another's hand had snatched from him. A groan of utter misery betrayed his presence to the leaders, unseen, as otherwise he might have hoped to remain. The Frangipani passed him, without taking any notice of the monk, an accustomed sight indeed in these regions, abounding in chapels and sanctuaries and the huts of holy hermits. Whether the woman obeyed the summons of an inner voice, or whether the despairing gaze of the youth compelled her own, – as she was about to pass him, Ilaria suddenly reined in her palfrey and met Francesco's gaze. For a moment she turned white to her very eyes, then a shrill laugh rang like the breaking of a crystal through the sun-lit wood; the cavalcade cantered past, many a curious glance being turned on the monk, who in some unknown way had provoked Ilaria Caselli's sudden mirth.

The sun had set. Filmy rose-clouds brooded in an amethyst mist over the distant levels of the sea. Then, with the swiftness of the south, dusk enveloped the dells of Vallombrosa.

The procession had long vanished from sight. Still Francesco stared in the direction where Ilaria's laughter had died away, as if forced to do so by some terrible spell. When the awful pain of his heart had to a degree subsided, he felt as if something had snapped in two in its dark and desolate chambers. Could love become so utterly forgetful of its own, – could love be so utterly cruel and blind? Only a miracle could now save his soul from perishing in its own darkness!

The glory of the night had, as it were, deepened and grown richer. The purple sky above was throbbing, beating, palpitating with light, of stars and planets, and a great gold-red moon was climbing slowly over the misty plains of Romagna. Fireflies whirled in burning circles through the perfumed air, and from the convent of Vallombrosa came the chant of the Ave Maris Stella, answered from some distant cloister in the greenwood: "Vale Carissima! – Vale Carissima!"

CHAPTER VI

THE DUKE OF SPOLETO

FRANCESCO, having spent the night at a wayside inn, was astir with the breaking of the dawn. He saddled and bridled his horse for the day's journey, and having paid his reckoning, set his face to the west. The grass was drenched with dew, the woods towered heavenward with a thousand golden peaks, while down in the valley a rivulet echoed back the light, chanting sonorously as it leaped over the moss-grown boulders in its narrow bed.

Francesco was very solemn about the eyes that morning. He looked as one who had aged years in one night, and strove with might and main to forget the past. He watched the sun climb over the leafy hills of Velletri, saw the fleecy morning clouds sail through the heavens, heard the thunder of the streams. There was life in the day and wild love in the woods. Yet from the world of passion and delight he was an exile, rather a pilgrim, therein fettered by a heavy vow. He was to bear the Grail of Love through all these wilds, yet might never look thereon, or quench his thirst.

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

The towers and turrets of Camaldoli had faded behind him in the steely blue. On the distant horizon Tivoli towered ensconced among her cypress-groves. To northward the woods bristled under the relentless gleam of the sun, a glitter like blackened steel under a summer sky. The road wound under ancient trees. Many a huge ilex cast its gloom over the grass. The stone pine towered on the hills, above dense woods of 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 the sun rode higher in the heavens, he came to a wilder region. A desolate valley opened gradually before him, steeped on every side with the black umbrage of the woods. A wind had arisen, brisk and eager as a blithe breath from the sea, and cloud shadows raced athwart the emerald dells.

Lost in reveries of the past, and brooding over what the times to come might hold for him, Francesco trotted on through a grove of birches, whose filmy foliage arabesqued the heavens. A glade opened to the road below. All around him were tall hills deluged with green woods. A stream glittered through the flats under elms and drooping willows.