CHAPTER IV

PROSERPINA

Francesco arrived at Avellino at dusk. It was the hour when the castle

courtyard was comparatively deserted. Only two bow-men guarded the

lowered drawbridge, and they paid little heed to the familiar form of

the youth as he slowly rode through the gate.

Throwing the reins of his steed to an attendant, Francesco dismounted

and entered the castle, undecided what to do first. Seeing a page

lounging in the hallway, he inquired if the Viceroy was in his

apartments.

"He returned from the falcon hunt at dusk and has retired," came the

response.

"Go, ask him if he will receive me," Francesco entreated,

heavy-hearted.

The page bowed and ran up the winding stairway, leaving Francesco to

wait in the hall below.

Presently he returned.

"The serving-man in my lord's antechamber has orders that my lord is

to be disturbed by no one, since he is preparing for his departure on

the morrow--"

"For his departure?"

The page eyed Francesco curiously, as if he wondered at his ignorance

of that which was on the lips of all the court.

"You have not heard?"

"I have just returned to Avellino,--from a mission," he replied,

avoiding the inquisitive gaze he knew to be upon him.

"Then you know not that King Conradino has crossed the Alps? The court

departs on the morrow to join him before the walls of Pavia!"

Francesco's hand had gone to his head.

"Conradino has crossed the Alps?" he spoke as out of the depths of a

dream.

"I will see the Viceroy on the morrow!"

Leaving the page to gaze after him in strange wonderment, Francesco

went slowly towards the stairs. He shrank unspeakably from

explanations and scenes of farewell. At the idea of pity and amazement

which his fate might call up, he fairly shuddered. Perhaps there might

be even sneers from his companions. And, by the time he had reached

his own chamber, he was debating the possibility of departing as if

for a journey with excuses to none save his liege lord, the Viceroy of

Apulia.

Upon a wooden settle in his chamber, with the moonbeams pouring down

from the window above it, he seated himself, and his heart beat up in

his throat.

If it were true! If the ecstatic dream of his life might be realized!

If face to face he might meet Conradino, the imperial youth, the

rightful heir and ruler of these enchanting Southlands which smarted

under Anjou's insufferable yoke!

How often had that fair-haired youth, gazing with longing eyes towards

the Land of Manfred from the ramparts of his castle in the distant

Tyrol, been the topic of converse at Avellino. His very name had

kindled a holy flame in every heart. At his beck, the beck of the last

of the Hohenstauffen, Ghibelline Italy would fly to arms as one man.

Had the hour come at last?

A cold hand suddenly clutched his heart.

What was it to him? What was anything to him now? What right had he to

enter the lists of those who would flock to the banners of the

imperial youth? Had he not, from the day of his birth, forfeited the

right to live and to act according to the dictates of his own heart?

While they fought he must look on, bound foot and hand, an enemy to

the cause which was his cause. An involuntary groan broke from his

lips.

Too late--too late!

He arose, and, opening a chest in the wall of his chamber, Francesco

took from it a faded flower wrapped in its now dry cloth. The former

scarlet glory was gone, the petals were purple and old. He recalled

the joy with which he had received it. A week ago he would have

proclaimed it to all the world. Now the rose and his life were alike.

Now he was conscious only of a sickening, benumbing bitterness of

spirit, as he laid the faded flower tenderly into its former place.

Then, lighting a cresset lantern in a niche in the wall, he turned

away to look through his possessions, to pack what little he might

take with him on the morrow. And the first necessity which came to his

hand was a small, sharp, jewel-hilted dagger,--Ilaria's gift.

From without the encircling gardens of the castle there came strange

sounds of laughter and merriment which struck Francesco with a deeper

pang. For a time he resumed his seat and, with hands clasped round his

knees, stared in immobile despair into the darkness. Eventually, the

oppression of his mind becoming well-nigh unbearable, and, knowing

that sleep would not come to him in his present overwrought state,

Francesco arose and strayed out into the dimly lighted corridor, until

he emerged on a terrace, whence a flight of broad marble stairs

conducted to the rose-garden below. Beyond, a pile of gray buildings,

rising among thickly wooded hills, was barely discernible in the misty

moonlight. A fault breeze, blowing up from the gardens, bathed him in

the fragrance of roses. He shuddered. From below where he stood came

the sound of laughing voices.

Francesco peered down eagerly into the rose-garden, girdled by the

wall of the terrace, on the summit of which he stood. The bushes were

heavy with blossoms; they drooped over the white sand-strewn walk,

even beneath the occasional shadow of a slender cypress that seemed to

pierce the violet of the night-sky. They clambered up the sides of the

fortress villa, and mingled with the ivy on the opposite sweep of the

wall.

The garden was flooded with that golden moonlight which creates in the

beholder the illusion of unreality; for not in the midnight dark, but

where radiance is warmest and intensest, are spirits most naturally

expected by the sensitive mind.

Where the light of the moon was most translucent, there stood a man in

the mythical garb of Hermes, catching therein the full moon glamour.

As he looked up he met the gaze of Francesco.

"Come down, Francesco," he cried in comical despair. "Despite my

winged feet I cannot pull the car of Amor, and he refuses to use his

wings!"

A strange light leaped into Francesco's eyes.

"Why not summon Pluto, God of the Underworld?"

"He declines to waive his right to march beside Proserpina, and you

know the Frangipani is quite capable of making a quarrel out of a

revel."

"And who is Proserpina?"

"Ilaria Caselli."

"Who calls me?" a voice at this moment spoke from the thicket, and ere

either could answer a girlish figure stepped into the moonlight,

paused and looked in amaze at Francesco.

The latter exchanged a few words with his companion who bowed and

withdrew.

Slowly she moved towards the terrace; lithe and languid, she seemed

herself the Queen of Blossoms, her dusky hair, flower-crowned,

enveloped in rainbow bloom.

"Francesco!" she called, surprise and appeal in her tone. "I knew not

you were here! Come down!"

"Yes,--Ilaria," he said, yet stood at gaze and made no sign to stir.

The light in his eyes had died. She stood below him, half in the

light, half in the shadow, her neck and throat bare, her arms in tight

sleeves of flower-embroidered gauze.

"Come down!" she called more imperiously. "Why do you delay?"

He moved round the wall to the descending stair and presently was by

her side.

"When did you return?" she asked, extending her hands to him.

He took them, pressed them fervently in his own, then, bending over

them, kissed them passionately.

"Within the hour," he replied, his eyes in hers.

"And your mission?"

"It is accomplished!"

"I am glad," she said, and saw not the look of anguish that passed

over his face. "I came to ask you," her bosom was heaving strangely,

"to be near me when the pageant breaks. I am afraid of Raniero

Frangipani!"

"Yet you chose the role of Proserpina, knowing--" He broke off, a

shiver of constraint in his voice.

"Who told you?"

He pointed in the direction where his informant had disappeared.

"Messer Gualtiero! You knew," he then continued slowly, "that Raniero

would be your companion in the pageant!"

Ilaria pouted.

"Mine is the part of Lady of Sorrows--Queen of the Underworld!"

"And the Frangipani's society is the price you pay for your high

estate."

She looked at him, then dropped her eyelids on a sudden.

"Why should I fear, when you are by?"

Something clutched at Francesco's throat.

"I may not always be near you!"

She arched her eyebrows.

"Then I must look for another protector!" she retorted with a shrug.

Noting the pain her words gave him, she added more softly:

"You will not leave me again?"

"You shrink from the Frangipani," he replied, ignoring her question.

"Has he insulted you? Is he your enemy?"

"It is not because he is an enemy, but rather the opposite, that I

would avoid Raniero Frangipani," was her low reply.

All the color had faded from Francesco's lips.

"You mean--" the words died in the utterance.

"He wooes me!" she said low.

A fierce light leaped into Francesco's eyes. She laid a tranquillizing

finger on his arm.

"You have no cause for wrath, that I can see! And yet I would rather

have you near than far. The Frangipani is filled with violent

passions. He wooes me violently. Since you left Avellino," she added

with seeming reluctance, "he seems to have taken new courage,

and--some unexplained umbrage at--I know not what! 'Who is this

Francesco Villani?' he said to me and his eyes glowered. 'What is his

ancestry? What should entitle him to your regard?' Again and again he

dwelled on this point,--Francesco,--you know I love you,--and I care

not,--so you love me,--but you will tell me,--that I may silence

him,--Francesco,--will you not?"

A shadow as from some unseen cloud swept over his face.

"I shall tell him myself,--and in your presence."

"You will not quarrel?" she said anxiously, holding out her hands to

him.

He clasped the soft white fingers fiercely in his own, then pressed

them to his throbbing heart. In the distance voices were heard

calling, clamoring.

For some moments they gazed at each other in silence, then she said:

"They are calling me! I must return to my task of sorrow!"

"Strange words for a queen--" he said with an attempt at merriment.

"Queen of the Shades," she replied. "And I long for life--life--life!

With all it has to give, with all it can bestow!"

A strange, witch-like fire had leaped into her eyes. Her lips,

thirstily ajar, revealed two rows of white even teeth, and in that

moment she looked so alluringly beautiful, that Francesco in a fever

of passion threw his arms about her and kissed her passionately again

and again, with moist, hungry lips.

"Will you not come?" she whispered, after having utterly abandoned

herself to his embrace.

He shook his head.

"I have no part in this! I will await you here!"

The voices sounded nearer. Now could be distinguished the cry:

"Proserpina--Proserpina!"

She turned reluctantly, with a last glance at him, and hastened back

towards the revels.

Francesco watched the slender, girlish form, until she had mingled

with the shadows of the trees. Then, with a low cry of anguish, he

leaned against the balustrade and covered his face with his hands.--

And now the pageant began to gather in the garden, a pageant of Love

in a guise such as might have been conceived by Petrarca,--a mediaeval

divertissement, such as the courts of thirteenth century Italy were

wont to delight in. And Francesco, slowly waking from a disordered

reverie, leaned over the balustrade, straining his gaze towards the

clearing, whence peals of laughter and music of citherns and cymbals

heralded the approach of a procession, which in point of

fantasticality did indeed honor to those who had contrived it.

It was a pageant of the Gods, the outgrowth and conception of a mind,

not yet set adrift by the speculative theory and philosophy of a Dante

or Petrarca, a mind still hovering between Roman austerity and

Hellenic mystery.

As the procession emerged from the inner courtyard, a level ray of

moonlight fell upon attires wherein seemed blended the gayest fantasy

of all times: Juno frowning jealously on the bowed figure of her Lord;

Mars and Venus, and Pluto, his dark face rising over folds of sombre

purple, beside the magically fair Proserpina. After these there came

groups of languid lovers of all ages; enchanters and victims: Orpheus

and Eurydicé, Jason and Medea, Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristram and

Iseult. Bound with great ropes of blossom or chains of tinsel, they

moved sadly, crushed and sighing, behind the chariot of the King of

Sighs. And he, the dismal ruler, seemed the personified memory of a

figure in the lower church at Assisi, driven shrinking towards the pit

by Giotto's grave angels of penance.

Round that chariot gathered fantastic shapes, clad in dim, floating

garments, their faces concealed by gray masks on which the unknown

artist had stamped an expression, now of wild dismay, now of grinning

triumph, a presage, it would seem, of the Dreams and Errors, and the

Wan Delusions, whom Petrarca conceived to be the closest companions of

the lord of the mortal race.

Exclamations of delight from the balconies of the castle, where dusky

groups of spectators were dimly discernible, broke the dream stillness

of the night.

From his vantage point on the terrace Francesco's burning gaze,

riveted on the pageant, followed the graceful swaying form of

Proserpina with the pale face and lustrous eyes upturned to him, while

the procession circled round the terrace, and a Wan Delusion,

following directly in her wake, flung up her shadowy arms and groaned.

For these mediaeval folk threw themselves into the pageant with the

dramatic impulse native to place and time. Incited by the tragedy of

Benevento, still quivering through men's memory, and the apprehension

of future clouded horizons, this occasion probably meant to many of

them, as to Ilaria Caselli, the rejection rather than the assumption

of a disguise, the free expression through the imaginative form, so

natural to them, of the allegiance to passion in which their life was

passed. Each acting his or her part, they moved slowly through the

garden, Orpheus gazing back wildly in search of Eurydicé, Circé

chanting low spells, Tristram touching his harp strings, his eyes upon

Iseult, and all at will sighing and moaning and pointing in pathetic

despair to the chains that bound them, and the arrows that transfixed.

Presently they gathered round a fountain, which, in the centre of a

rose-garden, sent up its iridescent spray in the silver moonlight, and

Tristram, stepping to the side of it, began to sing a Canzona, almost

like a church chant, artificially lovely in the intermingling of the

imagery of Night and of the Dawn. Orpheus and Circé followed with a

Canzona which struck Francesco's ear with music new, yet charged with

echoes of much that he had suffered during the past eventful days.

With the cadenza of the last stanzas the glow of torches had faded,

and the revellers moved towards the opposite wall, whence Francesco

was watching one by one, as they disappeared within a low doorway,

leading to an inner stair. As they emerged upon the summit each

reveller bore a lighted torch which hardly quivered in the still,

balmy air of the summer night. A moment's confusion, and the entire

pageant began to advance in single file against the dusky night-sky in

which the moon, now soaring high above the trees, gleamed with a

strange lustre. Above the garden they moved as above the far dim

world, not earthly men and women in seeming, but phantoms of the air.

The car of Pluto was illumined from within, and the red light struck

with almost ghostly effect the gray faces and garments of the

Delusions. The actors were hushed into silence by the unearthly beauty

of the scene.

Francesco, from across the garden, watched with eyes heavy and weary,

the Triumph of the Gods. As Proserpina came in sight, her pale face

flashed on him by the light of the torches carried by Pluto. It was

strangely alluring in its marble pallor, the dusky hair wreathed with

jasmine stars. Francesco was seized in the grip of sudden terror. The

lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes were passing visibly before

him under the violet night-sky. In a mad, delirious impulse, he thrust

out his arm, the moonlight striking full upon his face. The revellers

paused for an instant, then extended their arms with welcoming shouts.

Proserpina, as she came near, threw a flowery chain round his neck.

Breathless, dazed, Francesco saw them move away, the blood throbbing

wildly in his temples.

The moon had passed her zenith when the revellers, having twice

circled the walls, descended once more into the garden and dispersed,

each at his or her own will, through the demesne. Terraces illumined

by torch-light, afforded ample opportunity for wandering, and the

ilex-wood which covered the castle hill, was a lure for the more

venturesome. The castle itself had flung wide its portals, and a

collation was being served within until a late hour. The gay company

that so recently traversed the gardens had swiftly flown from one

haunt of pleasure to the other. Most of the participants in the

pageant, however, preferred to remain out-doors. Proserpina, Goddess

of the Underworld, and the Delusions seemed still to extend their

dreamy sway over the whole company. Day-light selves had disappeared,

carrying with them any teasing pricks of conscience, and the greater

number of the maskers continued through the night to play their parts

without reserve.

When Francesco had ensconced himself on the terrace to witness the

revels, he had given no thought to the continuation of the same. He

wandered through the labyrinthine walks with troubled mind, every now

and then shrinking, a listener both unwilling and unwelcome, from

sounds that assailed his ear from rose-bower and cypress-wall. Yet the

setting of beauty rendered his repugnance languid. He seemed to feel a

detaining hand upon him that would not let him escape. Life had ever

been, even in his happiest moods, as a masque, lived in a dream. But

to-night the masque had seemed very real. The weird loveliness of the

pageant had enthralled his soul, had brought home to him with new and

intense poignancy the dark fate which lurked in the background.

Aimlessly he strolled on, aimlessly he lost himself in the

labyrinthine maze, hoping, yet fearing, to meet Ilaria Caselli.

He had noted now and again a girlish figure flitting around his

pathway, in an open space, where a murmuring water flowed. It came out

into the starlight and he recognized White Oenoné.

She swayed towards him timidly.

"Though Paris be lost to me, are there not other shepherds in the

glades of Ida?"

Her tones blended with the murmur of the stream.

The tumult of sense swept over him. He saw her white smiling face so

close to his, in the faint light of the moon her hair shone golden.

Then he gave a start and thought of Ilaria, and of her strange

request.

"Ay--but thy Paris will return, fair nymph," he replied courteously.

"For the Greek knights have won Troy-Town at last, and the false witch

who lured him from thy side, has sailed for Argos."

He turned away, noting the shade of disappointment in her face. His

steps were aimless no longer. Ilaria was not in the rose-garden, nor

would he find her on the terraces through which the flickering

torch-light gleamed. He hastened onward towards the ilex-wood which

bordered on one side close to the castle. In the dense shadow two dim

figures stood. He knew without seeing that one was Ilaria.

"Ilaria!" he called.

She started, took a step towards him, then paused.

On her face he noted the same dazed, half-bewildered look which he had

discovered thereon in the pageant.

"Ilaria!" he called once more. His voice had still the same purity of

tone as in his childhood.

She came to him slowly, holding out both hands.

"Take me away!" she whispered with a shudder.

Then, from the deeper shadow of the wood, there stepped a form of

remarkable elegance, advancing with the graceful, but assumed,

demeanor of a man immured in his own conceit. He was tall, with a

well-poised head of the purely Latin type. The face was long, but

unusually handsome; of olive hue with regular features, that revealed

many generations of aristocratic ancestry. The nostrils were

delicately chiselled, the eyebrows high and narrow, the thin, cynical

lips revealed the sensualist. There was nothing in the countenance of

Raniero Frangipani to dismay the observer, until one looked at the

eyes. They were narrow and intensely black, filled with a baleful

brilliance that feared no man, yet revealed to view a soul utterly

depraved.

The Frangipani having changed his masque, was clothed in the richest

apparel of the time. Long hose of crimson silk encased the legs,

rising from soft shoes of the same color. A coat of black silk,

embroidered with golden flowers, and the Broken Loaf, the emblem of

his house, was confined at the waist with a golden belt, to which was

affixed a poniard with an exquisitely jewelled hilt. He advanced with

the graceful yet arrogant swing of the bred courtier, yet his handsome

face was not pleasant to behold, as he turned to Francesco with an

insolent air:

"I think, Messer Villani, you will find the rose-garden more agreeable

than the wood!"

Francesco looked at him coldly.

"I am here at the request of Madonna Ilaria," he replied quietly.

"Indeed!" sneered the Frangipani, advancing a step closer. "Madonna

Ilaria did not hint that she preferred the society of a marplot to

that of a Frangipani!"

Francesco made an impetuous step forward, feeling for his dagger. But

Ilaria caught his arm and clung to it. The two were faintly visible in

the starlight.

The Frangipani regarded them for a moment with a contemptuous smile.

"I crave your pardon," he then turned with an ironical bow to the

girl. "I feared Messer Villani would be too fatigued after his journey

in quest of an ancestor!"

Francesco had turned pale at this palpable insult. There was no doubt

that the Frangipani had spied upon him for reasons not difficult to

surmise. But ere he could carry out his intent, but too plainly

revealed in his set features, Ilaria had interposed herself between

the two.

"Leave us!" she turned to the Frangipani with a scorn in her voice

that caused the latter to start, while she clung to Francesco's arm,

hardly less pale than he.

Raniero Frangipani regarded them for a moment in silence, tapped with

his foot, like one to whom a new idea has come, then with a long low

sound, very much like a snarl, he vanished in the gloom.

[Illustration: "Ilaria had interposed herself between the two"]

Francesco turned to the girl who still clung to him. She knew the look

on his face, but there was in it an expression she had never seen

before, penetrating, sorrowful, crushed. His breath came and went in

gasps, yet he spoke not.

"Francesco," she said after a pause, while she anxiously watched the

play of light and shadow on his face. "Listen! Messer Raniero seems to

bear you a grudge. Promise me to avoid a meeting with him! He has said

much to me, thinking thereby to win my favor. He now knows,--let that

suffice!"

"He has told you much? What has he told you?"

"You have not told me what took you away so suddenly!"

He held up his hand deprecatingly.

"A secret mission of the Viceroy's," he said blushing, as he stammered

the falsehood. Yet he could not bring himself to avow even to the girl

he loved best on earth, his father's shame. The pain of life could not

be made less, by adding more pain.

"Trust me!" he begged. "We have always felt together,--I have never

deceived you!"

"Until now!" her voice sounded shrill and strained.

"No! Ilaria, no! Were it mine to tell,--there is no secret for you in

this heart of mine. But the matter concerns another! Perhaps--in

time--"

He broke off and closed his eyes.

"I crave my youth!" cried Ilaria unheeding. "My youth, and the joy of

life which comes but once. If one will not give me what I seek--I look

elsewhere, if so I may!" Her lips trembled. "Why do you look at me

so?" she continued impatiently after an instant's pause. "Before you

came into the wood I saw your eyes, and I see them still in the dark!

What was the object of that mission?"

Francesco drooped his head, but made no reply. In a clover leaf at his

feet a dew-drop mirrored a star, breaking the light into a thousand

tiny shafts.

"I will give you your youth," he spoke at last in a low strained voice

that sounded like a broken sob.

Ilaria laid her hand on his and spoke low. Her light soft fingers were

fevered.

"What do you mean?"

"It is a simple matter!"

She gazed at him startled, terrified. Suddenly she threw her arms

about him.

"Forgive me! Forgive!"

He pressed her to his heart and kissed her dark eyes.

Then slowly they retraced their steps towards the castle.

When Francesco reached his chamber, the moon was slowly sinking

through the azure night-sky.

He noted it not. It seemed to him he was standing in the midst of a

great void. All life about him had died. And he stood there, digging

his own grave, and, as the last spade of turf flew up, the stifling

night of annihilation swallowed up the universe.