CHAPTER III

THE GRAIL OF LOVE

Francesco was astir early with the coming of the dawn. The grass was

drenched with dew, the woods towered heavenwards with a thousand

golden peaks. In the valleys the stream echoed back the light.

Francesco was very solemn about the eyes. He looked as one who took

little joy in life, but worked to forget and to ease his heart of its

great pain. He watched the sun climb over the leafy hills, saw the

clouds trend the heavens, heard the thunder of the streams. There was

life in the day and wild love in the woods. Yet from this world of

passion and delight he was as an exile, rather a pilgrim, fettered by

a heavy vow. He was to bear the Grail of Love through all these wilds,

yet might never look thereon, nor quench his thirst.

He met Ilaria in the garden, took her head between his hands, and

kissed her upon the lips. She clung close to him and smiled, yet her

looks were distraught; she seemed fearful of looking in his eyes.

"I have saddled the horses," he said laconically.

She read the heroism in his heart; the bitterness of the faith she

compelled from him. The truth troubled and shamed her.

Francesco strapped the wallet and water flask to his saddle and

lifted Ilaria to her steed. Then they crossed the stream and, riding

northwards, plunged into the woods.

All that day Francesco strove and struggled with his youth, his heart

beating fast and loud under his steel-hauberk. Love was at his side,

robed in crimson and green; Ilaria's hair blinded him more than the

noon-brightness of the sun. And as for her eyes, he dared not look

therein, lest they should tempt him to deceive his honor. The silence

enfolded them as though they were half fearful of each other's

thoughts.

Francesco spoke little, keeping his distance, as though mistrusting

his own tongue. As for Ilaria, the same passionate perverseness

possessed her heart, and, though she pitied Francesco, she pitied him

silently and from afar.

The following night they lodged in a beech wood, where dead leaves

spread a dry carpet under the boughs. Francesco made a bed of leaves

at the foot of a great tree. He spread a cloak underneath for Ilaria's

comfort, then started away, as though to increase the distance between

them.

"Francesco!" she cried suddenly, looking slantwise at his face.

He turned and stood waiting.

"You have given me your cloak!"

"It will keep the chill air from you!"

"What of yourself?"

"I shall not need it!" he said. "I shall not sleep to-night. I will

keep watch and guard you! Have no fear!"

She sighed and hung her head as she sat down at the foot of the tree.

Francesco's deep and unselfish love shamed her more and more. Yet his

very patience with her hardened her discontent. Had he rebelled and

conquered her against her will, she would have followed him to the

ends of the earth.

Francesco, with a last look, left her there and strode away to a point

where he might see, though not speak to her. A full moon climbed in

the east and the wide lands were smitten with her mystery. The

valleys were as lakes of glimmering mist, the hills like icy pinnacles

gleaming towards the stars. The forest glades were white under the

moon; the trees tall, sculptured obelisks, their trunks as of ebony

inlaid with pearl wherever the moonlight splashed the bark. The

silence of the wilderness was as the silence of a windless sea.

Francesco wandered in the woods, his heart full of the strange,

haunting beauty of the autumnal night. The stars spoke to him of

Ilaria; the trees had her name unuttered on their lips. What was this

woman that she should bring such bitterness into his life? Were there

not others in the world as fair as she, with lips as red and eyes as

deep? Strangeness--mystery! She was one with the moon; a goddess

shrined in the gloom of forests dim. White and immaculate, beautifully

strange, she seemed as an elf child fated to doom men to despair, to

their own undoing.--

Francesco passed back and found her asleep under the trees. He stood

beside her and gazed on the sleeping face. There was silent faith in

that slumber; trust in the man who guarded her honor. The moonlight

streamed on the upturned face, shining like ivory amid the gleam of

her dusky hair. How white her throat was, how her bosom rose and fell

with the soft white hands folded thereon.

A sudden warmth flooded Francesco's heart; and youth cried in him for

youth. Should this beauty be mured in stone, this red rose be hid by

convent trees? Was she not flesh and blood, born to love and to be

loved in turn,--and what was life but love and desire?

He crept near on his knees, hung over her breathlessly, gazing on her

face. God, but to wake her with one long kiss, to feel those white

arms steal around his neck! They were alone, the two of them, under

the stars. For many minutes Francesco hung there like a man tottering

on a crag betwixt sea and sky. Passion whimpered in him; his heart

beat fast. Yet even as he crouched over Ilaria asleep, some dream or

vision seemed to trouble her soul. Her hands stirred; her lids

quivered; the breath came fast betwixt her lips. A shadow as of pain

passed over the moonlit face. Francesco, kneeling motionless, heard

her utter a low name, saw tears glistening on her cheeks; she was

weeping in her sleep.

Pity, the strong tenderness of his nobler self, his great love for the

girl of his youth, rushed back into the deeps as a wave from a cliff.

He rose up; the shadows flying from his heart as bats afraid of their

own flight. He knelt at the foot of the tree and covered his face with

his hands.--

On the following evening they saw the sea, a wild streak of troubled

gold under the kindling cressets of the west. Beneath them lay a

valley full of tangled shrubs and windworn trees. Westward rose a

great rock, thrusting its huge black bastions out into the sea. Upon

this rock rose the towers and pinnacles of San Nicandro, smitten with

gold, wrapped in mysterious vapor. Into the east stretched a

wilderness of woods, dun and desolate, welcoming the night.

Francesco and Ilaria rode out from the woods towards the sea, while in

the west the sun sank into a bank of burning clouds. The trees were

wondrous green in the slant light; the whole land seemed bathed in

strange, ethereal glory. San Nicandro upon its headland stood like

black marble above the far glimmerings of the sea.

Francesco rode with his eyes fixed on the burning clouds. Ilaria was

watching him with strange unrest. Since that first night in the woods

he had held aloof from her, had spoken little, had wrapped himself in

his iron pride. Yet at times, when his eyes had unwittingly met hers,

she had seen the sudden gleam therein of a strong desire. She had

watched the color rise in Francesco's sunburnt face; the deep-drawn

sighs that ebbed and flowed under the steel hauberk. Though his mouth

was as granite, though he hid his heart from her, she knew full well

that he loved her to the death. The fine temper of his faith had

humiliated, even angered her. Though his silent despair defied her

vanity with heroic silence, his courage made her miserable from sheer

sympathy and shame.

They crossed a small stream and came to a sandy region, where stunted

myrtles clambered over the rocks, and tamarisks, tipped as with flame,

waved in the wind. Storm-buffeted and dishevelled pines stood gathered

upon the hillock. The region was sombre and very desolate; silent,

save for the low piping of the wind.

Neither Francesco nor Ilaria had spoken since they had left the woods

and sighted San Nicandro upon its rocky height. Suddenly he pointed

with his hands towards the cliffs, the light of the setting sun

streaming upon his white and solemn face.

"Yonder lies San Nicandro," he said to her.

There was a species of defiance in the cry, as though the man's soul

challenged fate. His heart's cords were wrung with misery. Ilaria

quailed inwardly, like one ashamed; her lips quivered; her eyes for

the nonce were in peril of tears.--

"Yonder lies San Nicandro," she echoed in an undertone. "There I may

be at peace. I shall not forget--"

"Nor I," he said, with grim emphasis.

A narrow causeway curled upwards towards the tower on the rock. The

sea had sunk behind the cliff, the sky had faded to a misty gray.

Ilaria's eyes were on the walls of San Nicandro and she seemed lost in

musings as they rode side by side.

"Francesco," she said suddenly, as they neared the sea, "think not

hard of me! Strife and unrest are everywhere. It is better to escape

the world!"

"Better perhaps," he said, with his eyes upon the clouds.

"Forget that there is such a woman as Ilaria," she said. "I, too,

shall strive to forget the past."--

"Who can forget?" he muttered. "While life lasts, memory lives on!"

They had come to the causeway, where the track wound like a black

snake towards the golden heights. Not a sound was there save the

distant surging of the sea. The distorted trees thrust out their hands

and seemed to cry an eternal "Vale" to the two upon the road.

At the foot of the causeway, Francesco turned his horse.

"Go in peace!" he said, his voice vibrating with inward emotion, her

image haunting his heart, like a fell dream at night.

She stretched out a hand.

"Francesco--you will not leave me yet?"

"Ah!" he cried with sudden great bitterness, "is it so easy to say

farewell?"

His strong despair swept over her like a wind. She sat mute and

motionless upon her horse, gazing at him helplessly as one half dazed.

On the cliffs above, San Nicandro beckoned with the great cross above

its topmost pinnacle.

Ilaria shivered, struggled with herself, perverse as of yore.

"What am I, that you should desire me?" she said. "I have but little

beauty, and am growing old. Leave me, Francesco, and forget me! Forget

and forgive! I have no heart to struggle with the world!"

Francesco was white to the lips, as he stiffened his manhood to meet

the wrench.

"God knows how I have loved you,--how I love you still!"

"Francesco," she said, leaning towards him from the saddle.

He gave a hoarse cry and covered his face with his hands.

"For pity's sake," he said, "say no more to me! It is enough!"--

They had reached the gate.

He pricked his horse with his spurs, wheeled from her and dashed down

the road without a look. His face was as the face of a man who rode to

meet his death.

"Francesco!" she cried to him, as she saw him plunge to a gallop, saw

the shield between his shoulders dwindle into the night.

"Francesco!" she cried again, a sudden loneliness seizing on her

heart. "Francesco, come back! Francesco--"

The cry was in vain, for he would not listen, deeming her pity more

grievous than her scorn. Despair spurred him on; the black night

called.

Ilaria watched him vanish into the increasing gloom, while on the

cliffs San Nicandro stood, like the great gate of death.