CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE KING MOVES
The King awoke to find himself lying on his gold and crimson bed with the sunlight in a great patch on the floor beside him.
For a while he kept quite still, looking about him. Through the diamond panes of the window was a pleasant view of trees and sky and sunshine. Andreas turned on to his side and watched it lazily; then he noticed some spilled wax over the floor and clothes lying half out of an opened coffer. This led him to observe that he was in his dress still. He held up his arm and saw the sleeve was torn; he sat up and gazed at the rose and white hose he always wore; they were stained, and one of his shoes was gone.
Now he sat up he found his head was heavy and aching, his squire lying under the window asleep.
“Carobert!” he called.
The boy took no heed, and the King, looking round, saw his sword lying on the chair beside him. He seized it, and leaning from the bed, prodded the huddled figure.
“Carobert, fat, lazy good for naught!” he cried. “Wake up!”
The squire groaned and struggled into a sitting posture. Andreas replaced the sword on the chair and sank back on to his bed.
“What happened last night?” he demanded.
Carobert stretched himself and yawned.
“Last night!” he said with another groan. “Mass! What did not happen last night!”
“You were drunk, I suppose,” said the King with an air of disgust.
The squire smiled weakly.
“We met the Conte Raymond and his men——”
Andreas turned his face on the pillow.
“Yes—when we were returning from the Tavern.”
“And there was a fight,” finished Carobert.
The King lay gloomily silent. This was the climax of all the insults, wrongs, and indignities he had to endure at the court of Naples; that he should be driven to take his friends to taverns and have to brawl with the Conte Raymond’s men before he could return to the Palace.
The squire, yawning, was slowly setting the room in order. The growing sun touched the King’s long limbs and his tumbled yellow hair. He was thinking of Giovanna. With softer feelings, with something of the generous sense of youth and chivalry, he had gone to her joust. It had given him great pleasure to overthrow Luigi of Taranto, because he had thought that she, and all of them, finding him a man and a warrior, would be moved to some respect.
But when he had beheld her face, seeing who he was, he had hated her. He hated her now very bitterly, he saw that she would never be won, that always she would seek to humiliate and degrade him, that only by force would he be King in Naples.
He sat up on his bed, and drew a parchment from under his pillow. It was a list of those persons he intended to behead upon his coronation day, and the first on the list came the name of Raymond de Cabane, though he loathed all the smooth nobles who paid court to the Queen and mocked him, most of all did he fiercely loathe this man, who was to win his brother’s betrothed as payment for his intrigues against himself. He thrust the parchment back under the pillow, and his beautiful hand beat up and down on the coverlet.
“Avignon!” he muttered. “When shall I hear from the Pope at Avignon!”
He rose and went to the window. His anger of last night and the tavern revelry that had been the result of it, had left him stale and sick. He rested his square chin in his hand, and, gazing across the great beauty of Naples, thought there was no life he would not change this vile existence for. Brooding over his wrongs he grew sullen and out of humor with every one—with his brother who had sanctioned the match, with the old dead King who had made such late amends, with his envoys in Avignon who were so long.
The only thought that brought him any pleasure was that he could mount his horse, take up his spear, and ride away toward Melito and Capua to the great woods of Aversa after the boar. Leaving behind their music, their painted faces, covert insults, and silken grandeur, he could revel in the knowledge of his youth and strength, the feel of the great steed under him, the swinging past him of the countryside, the farms, the vineyards, the olive trees and chestnuts.
Once he had ridden as far as Baia, with its remains of superb marble palaces, the blues unspeakable and regal purples of the coast; and he had mounted the wall of the old Acropolis and seen such beauty as had shaken his soul.
The perfect islands of Ischia and Procida slept in the vivid Mediterranean, and the mist of enchantment was over them; traced in the foreground were the wild roses and grasses growing round some fallen Greek altar on the shore. Andreas remembered the stillness, the sun on his face, and the translucent sea that was blue beyond belief, and the gulls that had flashed through the enchanted silence, with that light that only three things can give forth—a sea bird’s wings, a ship’s sails, and a man’s sword.
Andreas, thinking of this place, longed for it.
“Carobert,” he said. “We will go hunting to Cuma and Baia.” He moved into the room and, yawning, stretched his long limbs; then relaxed himself quickly and turned, for Konrad of Gottif had flung himself into the chamber, breathing excitement. Andreas thought only of one thing.
“From Avignon?” he cried.
The lord of Gottif fell to his knees and caught the King’s hands.
“The Pope has recognized you,” he said in an unsteady voice. “The legate, with the bull of coronation, waits at Capua. At last—at last ye are master over this proud woman.”
With an inarticulate sound Andreas turned away, his cheeks became crimson, his lips quivered, he said nothing.
Konrad of Gottif, still kneeling and panting with the haste of his coming, broke into hot speech: “The Legate’s forerunner is come secretly and is below, my lord,” he said, “with letters of this import, that the Pope is prepared to support you with the whole of his authority, and has declared that any attempt to put up the Queen will be held as treason against the Holy See.”
Andreas turned about. His shining eyes dwelt ardently on his friend’s face.
“The people?” he asked. “Will the people stand—her—friends——”
“These Neapolitans will not rise against the Pope—they dare not—and if they did ye will have all Italy to back ye.”
The King’s bosom heaved.
“There are some men would give half their estates,” he said huskily, “that they had not insulted me.”
Konrad of Gottif rose to his feet.
“Why, God wot, ye will not have many enemies now.”
“Nay,” answered Andreas, showing his teeth, “for their heads shall grace the pageantry of my coronation, and blood instead of wine shall flow in the streets to celebrate my accession.”
“A fine resolution!” cried Konrad. “We will show them how Hungary may be avenged.”
The King’s eyes gleamed hard and set as steel; his nostrils were distended.
“The Queen,” he said, “does she know?”
“No—is it well she should—before we are ready?”
“She can no longer protect her friends,” breathed Andreas. “God’s Heaven—no; not against me—the King.”
“You will let her know?” cried Konrad.
“I am going to her,” he answered hoarsely.
“Is it wise?” asked Konrad.
The King answered from the door.
“It is my desire.”
Even as he was, in his disordered clothes, his hair disarranged, he sought for her through the palace. Finding the Legate’s messenger in the hall, he took the letters and thrust them into his breast. He was too excited to stay now to read.
By questioning those whom he met, he learned that Giovanna was in the loggia overlooking the garden.
Without a thought as to what he intended to do or say, with no conception what her behavior would be, he entered the antechamber of the loggia.
It was all marble. For background the trembling green of the garden to be seen between the slender pillars of the loggia that was filled with light.
The bright clear colors of the dresses of the company showed like velvet petals of flowers laid on snow.
Andreas stood looking at them.
Sancia and the Conte Raymond were playing chess, seated on scarlet cushions. Her fairness was like the ivory of the pieces, his swarthiness like the ebony. Maria was turning over the pages of a vast book; on the hem of her blue kirtle sat a little white cat. Walking up and down outside was Luigi of Taranto in a striped orange mantle that burned like flame against the marble.
In the center of the room stood Giovanna with a little arrow in her hand.
The pale green côte-hardie that showed her shape to the waist, ended in a jeweled girdle clasped about her hips, and a full white skirt rippled about her on the pavement.
Her auburn hair hung in nets over her ears, and across her brow was a close little wreath of roses.
When she saw Andreas she frowned and a delicate color came into her face.
“So—ye hold court,” he said.
All eyes turned to him. He swaggered nearer the Queen, and the shadow of his big frame fell blue on the marble.
“Giovanna d’Anjou,” he said. “By God His grace, and His Holiness’s commands, I am King here.” He flung up his head and eyed them. Raymond de Cabane rose softly; there was a little rattle as the chessmen fell from the board.
“Have your envoys returned from Avignon?” asked Giovanna faintly.
He stuck his thumbs in his girdle and set his legs wide apart, gazing at their silence with a flushed, triumphant face.
The Queen lifted her eyebrows and glanced at the Conte; she was very piteously pale.
“There are some friends of yours,” said Andreas, “shall find the King remembers.”
“Is this a threat, Lord Andreas?” she answered, breathing fast.
“No; I have no longer need to threaten.”
They had all risen to their feet. The white cat, disturbed, walked away from Maria.
Giovanna glanced round her. “Ladies,” she said, “the Lord Andreas has come for our good wishes—shall we withhold them—and you, Conte, pay your court to him—I am no longer Queen.”
Into Andreas’s young face came bewilderment, crossing the anger. Maria spoke. “May there not be a King and a Queen at one and the same time, Giovanna?”
“If my lord permit it,” said the Queen, “but it is all a matter for Naples to decide.”
Before her cold self-possession Andreas stood speechless, scowling, his insolence of triumph deserting him.
“This has come over suddenly,” she continued. “Maria, take my arm. Good lord, we will speak of this again in a little while.” She gave him a lazy smile and went very slowly out on to the loggia, leaning on her sister. Raymond and Sancia followed.
“I will go and write me a warrant for that man’s arrest,” muttered Andreas; then he thought him he would follow the Queen. He did not trust their quiet.
But as he stepped on to the sun-flecked marble, Luigi of Taranto faced him and laid a hand on his arm.
“My lord the King,” he said gently. “May I speak with ye?”
Andreas flushed at the address.
“Aye,” he assented ungraciously.
“Let us step out of the sun,” said his cousin.
They returned to the antechamber. Andreas looked at the resolute face, the contained gray eyes of the Prince, who, as considerably the older man, held a half-careless authority over him which his calm deference did not lessen.
“Ye unhorsed me splendidly yesterday,” said Luigi frankly. “And by San Gennoro! I have a good seat—a fine knight should make a fine King, cousin,” he smiled pleasantly.
Andreas crimsoned violently with pleasure.
“Why, I was fresh,” he answered apologetically. “Ye had already overthrown many—we must try a bout on equal terms.”
He resolved to ask his cousin to hunt with him and gazed on him with eager eyes of friendship.
“Ye have great strength,” said the Prince. “I had not believed that I could have been so overcome.”
The King laughed in a half-shamefaced manner. “I can squeeze a bough until the sap runs out,” he admitted. “But then it is a common thing in Hungary.”
“We Italians rely more on finesse,” remarked the Prince.
Andreas set his back against the marble wall. “Ye wished to speak to me?” he asked.
“Why, as a prince of your house and one near the throne, I am interested in this matter between you and the Queen.”
He took a turn about the chamber. “What do ye intend to do?” he said shortly.
Andreas frowned.
“To arrest her friends and my enemies. I have three hundred names—and as for the Queen,” he hesitated. “We—ye know—how she has treated me—cousin.”
Luigi of Taranto surveyed him with narrowed eyes.
“Ye cannot manage Giovanna,” he said quietly. “Perchance not many could—still we have not come to talk of her as yet, but of you; ’tis a great thing to be a King, cousin.”
“God wot, I have waited.”
Luigi of Taranto suddenly laughed. “I also,” he said.
The King became interested; this stately cousin fascinated him. “For what have ye waited?” he asked.
The Prince looked at him curiously—pityingly, perhaps.
“For fortune,” he answered. The great bars of orange shone on his mantle as he moved to and fro. Andreas wondered what he had to say to him, why he did not come to the matter.
“Have ye letters from Avignon?” asked Luigi at length. Andreas pulled them from his pocket and broke the seal.
“Latin!” he frowned.
“I can decipher them,” smiled the Prince. He took the parchments, unrolled them, and began to read aloud. It seemed to Andreas that his movements were all very slow; he began to fret, but Luigi’s easy imperturbability and calm held him quiet.
The Prince read from beginning to end of Clement’s florid epistle, spelled out all the blessings, the titles, the inscriptions, abused the clerk’s Latin, and made many comments on the contents. When he had almost finished and the King’s patience was exhausted, Henryk of Belgrade burst in upon them.
“Andreas!” he cried. “Carlo of Duras, who was in the suburbs collecting troops, has ridden up to say that he saw the Queen, Maria, and a number of men riding out of Naples!”
“God’s Heaven!” yelled Andreas. “Raymond has gone—they have escaped me!”
Furious, he turned to Luigi, who was quietly folding up the letters.
“Were ye beguiling me here while they fled?”
Luigi of Taranto looked him straight in the eyes. “Giovanna d’Anjou has her friends yet,” he said.
CHAPTER NINE.
THE CONVENT OF SANTO-PIETRO-A-MAJELLO
Andreas of Hungary ruled in Naples; no one disputed the title the Pope had sanctioned, nor made any effort on behalf of the Queen, who had admitted the justice of her husband’s claim by her sudden flight. In the triumphant court of the King she was never mentioned, seldom thought of, only Carlo di Durazzo had sometimes an uneasy remembrance of disdainful eyes unclosing on him, of a cruel face stricken into pallor, a delicate woman in a heavy gown, utterly forsaken—so had he seen her ride away.
And, as he knew his cousin well, as he thought of the fifteen great nobles with her, he shivered a little in his elegance at the things he had put his hand to for the King.
San Severino, the Queen’s councillor, had been executed in the Grand Palazzo three days after her flight; the prescription list grew daily longer, for the King ruled recklessly and with a heavy hand, treating Naples more as a conquered city than as his heritage.
Hungarians replaced Italians in every office of the crown, a thousand men were hired from Verona to keep the murmuring people down. The standard of Anjou no longer floated above the castle; there, as everywhere, it had given place to the banner bearing the proud arms of Hungary. Andreas, like a reckless rider managing fierce steeds, drove his fortunes at a headlong pace, and never glanced aside for obstacles nor looked ahead for danger. He knew nothing of the Queen’s whereabouts and cared little, save a generous concern for Maria d’Anjou. It was represented to him that Giovanna might escape to Provence and raise a war against him there or enlist some city of Italy in her favor; but he was careless of these things.
And then she sent to him from the Convent of Santo-Pietro-a-Majello at Aversa, some few miles outside the town. He read her letter through between pride and shame, and took it to Konrad of Gottif and the Duke of Duras, whom he found together in the garden comparing falcons.
The King, very gorgeous to look upon, in a gold-laced habit above the rose and white hose, drew Konrad of Gottif aside with that half-shy manner that changed him when he had to speak of the Queen.
“A letter from Giovanna,” he said, coloring, and thrust it into his friend’s hand. “Read it and show it to my cousin.”
The Duke, yawning, gave his falcon to the page and came up to them.
“The Queen has written to me,” Andreas spoke, awkwardly.
“By St. Catherine!” cried the Duke, and grew a little pale; “where is she?”
“At Aversa.” Andreas seated himself on the stone bench among the laurels, and his fine fingers pulled at the flame-colored and white gladiolas beside him.
Konrad of Gottif glanced over her small writing. “Of course you will not go?” he said, quickly, and handed the letter to the Duke, who read:
At the Convent of Santo-Pietro-a-Majello, Aversa, this eleventh day of September, in the year 1344, to the Lord Andreas of Hungary, in the Castel del Nuovo, Naples:
In the honor and welfare of the Kingdom, for our several comforts, for the sake of the illustrious Maria d’Anjou, will you come and confer with me in this house of peace? Being a woman and defenceless, I dare not enter a city you have armed with your soldiery, being your wife, by God His Grace Queen of this realm also, I will not patiently be wronged, therefore come here and treat with me, and God his blessing be upon our meeting.
Giovanna d’Anjou.
Carlo di Durazzo laughed.
“Defenceless! She does not mention Conte Raymond or the others.”
“Yet she had but fifteen men,” said Andreas, grandly. “Saying that even they are with her in this convent—and I shall go.”
“God’s name, why, my lord?” cried Konrad of Gottif.
Andreas lifted his blue-gray eyes.
“Those men, Konrad, I have sworn to punish before I am crowned King, and my cousin Maria I shall bring back to Naples. I shall not go alone.”
The Duke paced uneasily a few steps this way and that. “You intend to take the convent by storm?”
“I shall go there with my retinue,” answered the King. “After the hunt to-day I will arrest those traitors and execute them on my coronation morning. Maria I will send to Hungary as my brother’s bride. Cousin, what are the names of the fifteen she has with her?”
The Duke ran them over: “De Cabane, de Squillace, Godefroi de Marsan, Bertrand d’Artois——”
“The Frenchman!” interjected Andreas.
“From Provence, yes; di Terliggi, Morcane, Mileto, Cantangero, Roberto of Cyprus, the notary, Nicolo de Melaggo Acciajuoli, Lello d’Aquila, de Fondi, Tomaso Pace——”
“Write me down those names that I may remember them,” said Andreas.
“They are great and desperate men,” remarked Konrad of Gottif. “And I think, my lord, ye are unwise to go yourself.”
“Shall I stay away as though I am afraid?” flashed the King. “No, by God’s Heaven, as they insulted me, so will I trample on them, and as Giovanna watched it before, so may she watch it now.”
He rose, and his fierce glance rested on the Duke.
“You, messer, saw her triumph; you shall accompany me to Aversa.”
“And the Queen?” asked Konrad of Gottif.
The blood rose to the King’s noble young face.
“She may go free for me… the Holy Father will annul the marriage, seeing we are first cousins… I—have nothing to say to the Queen.”
He turned abruptly through the laurels toward the palace.
The Duke and the Hungarian looked at each other.
“Your master is very headstrong,” said Duras, with a faint smile. “He acts foolishly in visiting the Queen.”
“She can do nothing if he is armed with men. What should she do?”
The Duke picked a white rose and studied it attentively. “Of course,” he said, slowly; “what should she do?”
Konrad of Gottif rose.
“You are accompanying us?”
Duras replied with downcast eyes:
“Will you excuse me to the King? I have a headache—in truth, I am indisposed.”
“Too indisposed to hunt, my good lord?”
The Duke smiled. “I am no mighty hunter, messer——”
“We shall not hunt boars alone to-day——”
“I pray you excuse me and tender my duty to the King. Indeed, I am too sick to ride to Aversa.”
Andreas, hearing this an hour later as he mounted in the courtyard, laughed carelessly.
“My little cousin is a weakling,” he said.
It was a glorious morning, with a fine veil of cloud over the sun, tempering the heat, though promising thunder, the Italians said. The King’s spirits were tip-toe with youth, strength and triumph; he rode at a hand gallop through the streets of Naples, and for the sake of his sheer young splendor the people cheered him. More than one house was hung with silk and flowers in honor of his approaching coronation; more than one bright face smiled down upon him from casement and balcony. And Andreas laughed up at them, feeling his heart as high as his banner that waved above the city, for he was a King, and it seemed to him that his fortunes danced with gold like the blue bay that flashed between the houses.
Konrad of Gottif rode on his right, and the King gayly talked with him of his plans for the future and of little things that occurred to him.
He would build a lordly palace at Pausilippo, among the orange groves; he would send to his mother for a jewel to give Maria on her wedding—this brought him to remember that he should have written to his brother.
“But to-night,” he said; “I will write to-night.” Then he spoke of the little peasant girl who had disappeared; he told Konrad of the amulet, and laughing, added:
“I do not need it now.”
They left Naples behind them and started across the country toward Capua.
“Was ever sky so blue?” cried Andreas, exulting in the sun.
The cavalcade plunged into a forest of pine and chestnut, where the eager dogs were loosed. By the middle of the morning they had started a boar, and the King, adding the elation of his heart to excitement of the chase, was soon far ahead of the others in pursuit. Henryk of Belgrade alone kept up with the noble white steed as it thundered down the forest glade and across the flowered meadows. With the blazing sky swirling overhead, the scented grass underfoot, the trees to right and left, his heart and the horse’s hoofs keeping time in a wild measure, the King pursued the boar; his cap had gone and his yellow locks floated out with his gold cloak; one hand grasped the reins, the other held aloft the great spear; the white mane of the eager horse fluttered back and struck the rider’s flushed face; his breath came quickly in little sobs of excitement through his cleft lips; so, down the slopes and up the slopes, bringing a wind with him, rode Andreas of Hungary.
As the sun was dipping behind the chestnuts, they came upon the boar at bay, ringed about with crouching dogs, and one, bleeding, on the uprooted grass. It was on a low knoll under a cluster of beeches, all grown about with white flowers and limp scarlet poppies. Henryk of Belgrade rode up, shouting, and plunged at the boar, who turned and rushed at him.
“Take care!” laughed the King, reining up his foaming horse; but Henryk’s steed reared with fright and his master was thrown among the dogs.
The boar charged, but the King leaped splendidly from his horse and met him with the spear, standing over his prostrate friend; even for a moment his strength shook before the onslaught of the desperate animal. Then he drove home with the spear, then with the hunting knife, killing his foe cleanly.
Henryk scrambled up from the trampled beech mast. The King, panting, stepped back.
“Where are the others, Henryk?”
No one was in sight. Dark, heavy clouds were rising above the trees.
“There will be a storm,” said Andreas. He seated himself on the root of the beech beside the dead boar and the dogs.
“We must be near Capua or Aversa,” answered Henryk. “We can see no sign of a town from here.”
“It is no matter,” cried the King gayly. “The others, I think, must pass this way. We will wait awhile.”
Now the excitement of the chase was over, he felt himself tired, and laughingly told Henryk that he was hungry; then he fell to talking of his cousin Maria and of Raymond de Cabane’s designs upon her, and of his resolution that she should marry none other than his brother. “How much I talk of Ludovic to-day!” he said, smiling. “By God’s Heaven, he comes constantly to my thoughts. Henryk, I should have written to him—it is five days since he wrote to me—ah, the storm!”
In a moment it had blown up, a thick cloud obscuring the sky; a little distant thunder rolled. “We must find some shelter for the night,” remarked Henryk. “Nor linger for the others——”
“Some one comes,” said the King.
It was a shepherd boy hurrying toward the trees with the little wind that is the herald of rain blowing in his hair.
“Friend!” cried Andreas, in his halting Italian. “Come here——”
The boy turned, and started to see the gorgeous hunter seated among his hounds, with the dead boar beside the splendid great horses.
The King laughed light-heartedly.
“A poor specimen of venery, friend, as my huntsmen are not here—but tell us where we may find shelter if we will?”
The shepherd came softly up to him, gazing at the boar with wide eyes.
“Lord, there is no place near save the convent, whither I go.”
“Why, we will go there also,” cried Andreas. “Where is it?”
The boy pointed where the wood dipped into a valley.
“Below there—it is nearby—one may come upon a road.”
“Well, if it rain and our friends come not, we will ask asylum,” answered the King. He put his hand in the gold and leather purse that hung at his waist and gave the boy a piece of silver.
The shepherd took it with an awestruck admiration. The King’s yellow hair and blue-gray eyes and magnificent bearing were even as the figures in the missals illuminated by the monks. He was turning away slowly when Andreas called after him: “What is the name of your convent?”
The boy’s thin voice came over his shoulder.
“Santo-Pietro-a-Majello.”
Henryk gave a little exclamation.
“Where the Queen is!” said Andreas.
“And Raymond de Cabane,” added Henryk. “You will not go there?”
The King frowned. “Why not? I should be glad to see my cousin—I meant to go.”
“But not alone——”
“God’s name, Henryk,” cried the King impatiently. “What can a woman do? Have I grown to be afraid of such an one?”
“She has fifteen men with her.”
“We do not know it.”
“Would we had asked the boy,” said Henryk. “But he has gone.”
It began to rain in great drops; the thunder grew nearer. Andreas sprang up and looked about him for any trace of his company.
“Henryk, I am going to the convent.”
“Then you go, not as a King, but as a fool,” answered his friend roughly.
Andreas laughed.
“Why, you seem to think they might lay hands on me.”
“God knows they might.”
“By God, Henryk, I cannot bring myself to any fear of anything in the circle of the world—but I am tired, now, and something hungry.” He leaped, laughing, on to his horse. The whole landscape had darkened, and it was raining heavily. Henryk mounted.
“We must abandon the spoil,” said Andreas ruefully. “But perhaps there are those at the convent can come for it.”
The hounds behind them, they rode across the grass in the direction the shepherd had indicated, and the moment they cleared the scattered trees they beheld the convent, black against the stormy sky. It was a fine building, walled about with a great garden and shaded with many slim poplar trees that shuddered to and fro now dolefully in the gusts of rain.
A few moments brought them to the gate. On their summons it was instantly opened by a monk.
“I am the King,” said Andreas. “I ask your hospitality to-night.”
The monk bowed his head in silence, and the two men rode up the path through multitudes of sweet-smelling flowers, fragrant with the rain, to the convent of Santo-Pietro-a-Majello.
CHAPTER TEN.
THE NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER THE THIRTEENTH
Andreas, laughing, singing, bringing the gayety and splendor of his triumphant youth into the gray old building, followed the monk his guide up the stairs.
The Queen, on being informed of his arrival, had at once asked to see him. She sent Sancia to tell him that she was alone save for two or three of her nobles who had followed her and her sister, the rest having returned to their estates.
The King thought her message conveyed an appeal; for mercy, perhaps, and remembering how he had last stood before her, his heart swelled with exultation. They brought him into a large room in the front of the building that opened its full length by arched windows on to a stone balcony grown with small clustering red roses.
The walls were hung with arras worked in bright colors, showing the Seven Virtues striving with the Seven Sins; there were one or two high, stiff chairs and a low table against the wall bearing an alabaster angel holding a lamp and a brass bowl filled with white lilies; above was a little copper gilt statue of the Virgin on a carved bracket. Either side of the room was a door reached by two steps, and as Andreas entered, that to the right opened and the Queen came down.
They regarded each other a moment in silence. She looked ill and thin, stooping more than her wont, while the brightness of her auburn hair caused her smooth face to appear ivory-white. She moved her fingers in a restless fashion at her breast, staring at him; then she said:
“How it rains! My roses will all be spoiled!” And laughed unsteadily.
“Through the storm I am here to-night,” answered Andreas, struggling with embarrassment.
“Ah,” she said quickly. “So you were not coming?”
He was eager she should understand that he had never been afraid of her.
“I was coming in a more kingly fashion,” he said haughtily. “I have not even one servant in attendance.”
She looked at him in an extraordinary fashion.
“So you are alone—” She paused, then repeated the word. “Alone.”
“Henryk of Belgrade is with me, Madonna.”
The Queen moved slowly toward him.
“I will sit down,” she said faintly. “I have been ill.” She seated herself by the table, and so slight and frail she seemed that his strength was moved to pity her.
“You should not have left Naples, Madonna,” he said bluntly. “Did you think I should touch a woman?”
“My position was not to be borne,” she answered. “Your wife and not your wife—the Queen and not the Queen—and my friends——”
“They are here?” he interrupted. “I warn you of some of them I have sworn the death.”
“I have five with me—ten have gone,” she answered slowly. “And these five wish to make peace with you—I have no means wherewith to bribe them more.”
He noticed that she wore no jewels, though still wearing the gorgeous dress in which she had fled from Naples.
“De Cabane has gone?” asked Andreas.
“Yes, oh, yes.”
The King hated these men for having forsaken her. In his triumph he could afford to pity; he looked curiously at her faint beauty.
“Giovanna—what did you wish to say to me?”
“I am at your mercy,” she answered. “You have the crown, the people——”
“And the right,” he added.
“I am at your mercy,” she repeated.
The King frowned. He recalled how she had treated him when the power was hers, but an instinct of generosity kept him silent as to that.
“Where is Maria?” he demanded.
“She is in bed with a little fever,” answered the Queen.
“She goes to Hungary,” said Andreas. “I take her back with me to Naples.”
“Yes,” assented Giovanna.
The King walked to the window and looked out upon the rain and the bruised roses. Giovanna watched him and her face was like a mask.
“And what of me?” she asked.
He was silent. This listless submission roused in him a vague wonder. Why had she not fled to Provence or some other part of Italy?—why have waited here without striking a blow in her own cause? He glanced over his shoulder at her.
“You are grown meek,” he said.
“No,” she answered, “hopeless.”
At this his superb self-assurance felt an increased pity for her. ’Twas a woman’s manner of fight, from insolence to despair!
He came up to the table where she sat with her fingers trifling among the lilies in the brass bowl.
“Giovanna,” he spoke quietly. “What do you want with me?”
She kept her eyes very steadily down. “Pardon for my friends.”
“Not, by God, for Raymond de Cabane.”
“No—for the five who remain with me.”
“Who are they?”
“Godefroi de Marsan, de Squillace, Lello d’Aquila, di Terliggi, and de Fondi.”
“Let them return to their allegiance and I will pardon them.”
She bent her head.
“For myself—who am no wife to you—freedom from the form of it, an’ you can attain it from the Pope—the title of Duchess of Calabria and all revenues thereto appertaining, freedom to marry again whom I will, and money to support my state as first princess of the blood to the extent of three thousand ounces of gold a year.”
He had it in his power to thrust her into a convent for life. This considered, her terms were extravagant, and she seemed to be waiting for him to so pronounce them.
“And for so much I will renounce publicly all claim to the throne and engage to live in peace,” she added.
“But so be it the Pope will not annul our marriage?” asked Andreas, flushing.
“Then must I have the title of your Queen—but I will not trouble you…”
He interrupted her, lifting his noble face.
“Cousin, we will not talk of all this to-night—there are many to consult—but I swear,” and his color deepened, “that I will give you all you ask.”
She gave a start, looking up. “You mean it?” she cried.
“By God’s heaven, yes,” he glanced at her proudly, his color coming and going. “You—may have thought me—a boor—Giovanna, but I can behave even as a King,” he added, and his eyes flashed.
“You are generous, my lord,” said Giovanna, “but, as you say, we cannot discuss these matters to-night—I am still weakened by sickness.”
She rose and slowly, by reason of her heavy dress, moved across the room. The youth wondered why she wore such splendor; then it came to him she had fled in what she stood in. He was angry with himself that it had not occurred to him to send her her clothes and jewels.
She put one of her little hands to her forehead.
“My lord King, I am sorry for it all,” she said faintly. “I have been too ambitious.”
Her manner was almost humble, her guise pale and pitiful.
“Madonna,” said Andreas impetuously, softening instantly at her humility. “Will you sup with me and Count Henryk—forgetting these things for to-night?”
“No, no,” she answered hastily. “I must sit with Maria.”
“May I not see her?”
“She is in her bed,” said Giovanna. “The monks will look after you—I will send my lords to you—I shall see you in the morning——”
She stopped; her breath seemed to come with difficulty.
“Mass,” said Andreas gently, “I am grieved to see you so ill.”
“Good night, good night,” she answered with her face away from him.
“Good night, Madonna.” He strode with his easy strength to the door and opened it.
“Andreas!”
At his name that she had never used before, called so suddenly and sharply, he swung round.
She had put the room between them now, and was leaning against the window frame, her wide, purple eyes staring at him. A branch of the wet red roses had fallen in through the stone arch and lay against her skirt.
“What is it?” he asked curiously.
“Nothing,” she answered. “Nothing.”
He left her and went singing down the stairs.
He supped that night with Henryk of Belgrade and the five Italian lords, who were profuse in their professions of loyalty. Konrad of Gottif and some of the Hungarian soldiers arrived at the convent during the evening, having come upon it in their search for the King.
Merrily they jested and laughed together until well into the evening, Andreas at the height of gay spirits. The flattery of those present, the submission of his late enemies, the knowledge that he had done royally by the Queen, all combined to swell the young man’s triumph. He spoke of the hunt, of the boar they would fetch in the morrow, of the day’s sport they would have again when he had settled with the Queen. He praised the beauty of the scenery, the good fare the monks provided, he mentioned again his brother Ludovic, and toasted him, coupling his name with that of his cousin Maria. He, however, drank but little, and rose from the table early, soon after ten.
“As I have neither page nor servant,” he said, laughing, to Konrad of Gottif, “will you knock upon my door at the waking hour?”
“What hour is that, my lord?” smiled di Terliggi. “Surely you will sleep late to-morrow?”
“No,” said Andreas. “By daybreak, my good lord!”
“I’ll wager my falcon you’ll be asleep,” answered the Italian, “at daybreak.”
So still jesting, he parted from them and followed one of the monks to the room prepared for him. It was that opening on the left from the chamber where he had spoken with the Queen, and directly facing her apartment.
He asked for his few soldiers, and was told they lay in the outhouses, the two Hungarian nobles being lodged in another part of the convent.
The King entered his room gayly and asked for writing material. The monk brought it and retired.
It was a small chamber scantily furnished, and very ill lit by a smoky lamp. The bed was gaunt, the walls hung with worn tapestry. Andreas, yawning, seated himself at the little table by the window and commenced a letter to his brother.
But after the first few lines, weariness and the bad light overcame him; he put it aside for completion in the morning and rose, again yawning.
Struggling with sleep, he removed his gold-laced habit and his sword and laid them on the table beside the unfinished letter. He wore now his rose and white hose laced at the waist to a sleeveless jacket of the same color, and his white shirt ruffled round the throat. His high leather boots he took off, and as he bent over them the chain round his neck caught on the edge of the table and broke. He uttered an exclamation of annoyance, for he never went without it. It bore a jewel Ludovic had given him, a case containing a lock of his mother’s hair, and Hippolyta’s little amulet. As he laid the broken chain beside his habit he looked on these objects one by one, and a sudden sadness came over him; he wished he were not so far from the only two people he loved. Restlessly he went to the window and looked out.
The rain had ceased and the moonlight lay over the peaceful garden. On the horizon rested the thunder clouds that had retreated sullenly with their threat unfulfilled; it was absolutely still.
The King’s melancholy gave place to a wave of exultation, a thousand glorious projects formed themselves before him, he thought of the submission of the Queen and of the nobles; their last toast rang in his ears:
“Andreas, King of Naples!”
He turned into his chamber, put the light out and flung himself upon the bed. Then, sleepy as he was, some uncontrollable impulse made him rise and test the door.
As he stretched himself again upon the bed, the monastery bell rang out sharply, summoning the monks to the service held every hour of the day and night. Andreas crossed himself and fell asleep.
He slept heavily, dreamlessly for a while, then very suddenly awoke.
The room was filled with the gray light of dawn. It was so still he lay wondering what had wakened him, when a soft knock sounded on the door. Andreas remembered his boast that he would rise with the break of day, and sprang to his feet.
Sounds like suppressed laughter came from the other room, and Andreas, believing it was the nobles making a jest of his laziness, called aloud:
“I am coming, my lords!” He looked about for his clothes, but the knock being repeated, he went as he was, in his hose and shirt, gayly to the door, and opened it.
Opened it upon Raymond de Cabane with a dozen men behind him. Immediately he was seized and dragged from his door.
He gave a great shout, seeing what they intended, seeing in Raymond’s face murder, knowing instantly their purpose.
“Konrad! Henryk!” he cried, and with a terrific effort of his great strength disengaged himself from them and staggered across the room toward the Queen’s door, yelling with fury.
But they closed round him. He struggled hand to hand with the Conte Raymond and flung him off, escaped from them again, and endeavored to reach his room with the wild idea of arming himself, but Nicolo de Melaggo thrust his dagger through the staples of the lock.
At that the boy wrenched away from di Terliggi, who clung to him, and made for the center door, calling fiercely on his God and his Hungarians for succor. That door also was locked, and the Italians made a third rush.
He defended himself like a lion, rage at their trickery, scorn of their cowardice lending his strength a fury. Bertrand d’Artois, the Frenchman, he dashed against the wall and laid senseless at his feet. He struggled to the table and seizing the gilt statue of the Virgin from her bracket, struck Conte Raymond with it. The tapestry ripped from the wall in the fight, and the table went over. With flaming eyes Andreas shouted for help. Di Terliggi, the man who had laughed with him on his early rising, drew his dagger and wounded the King in the shoulder. It was the first weapon used, for it had been the Conte Raymond’s desire that they should strangle him with their hands. Andreas, feeling the blood flowing and his strength breaking, uttered horrible cries of despair, and with an effort of desperation dragged himself and the conspirators clinging to him to the Queen’s door. It was unsecured.
“Giovanna! Giovanna!” he shouted, and thrust them back and dashed into her room. He smashed the heavy door back in their faces, locked it and bolted it, then torn and bleeding, stumbled on to his knees in the center of the gray room.
She was standing by her bed with her bodice half unlaced and her bare feet showing under her gorgeous dress, her hair hung about her shoulders, that rose fair and white from her falling sleeves. She looked at Andreas, stepping back.
“The door—I forgot to bolt the door,” she muttered.
The King fell forward against her bed, great heaving breaths tore his frame; he was exhausted almost to death; the blood ran from his forehead and his shoulder on to the sheets and coverlet.
“Giovanna,” he sobbed. “They came to murder me—” His fair head sank on to the pillows; his shirt hung in rags on his torn body.
“You murdered San Severino,” said the Queen fiercely. “You would murder Raymond and all my friends——”
“Call my friends!” cried Andreas. “Is there no one will stand by me now?”
He made an effort to rise, but fell forward again. “Stanch this bleeding, cousin—for—the—love—of God——”
Outside they thundered on her door for their victim.
Giovanna crossed swiftly to her husband. “Am I to falter with what I have begun?” she said with dilated eyes.
“O God!” he murmured, half fainting. “Did you set them on—when you had lied to me?” He lifted his blood-smeared face, and his eyes were terrible in their anguish. “Yet do not let them in—now,” he said hoarsely. “I am spent—pity me, cousin.”
He was faint with loss of blood. She looked down at him and made no movement either to assist him or to unclose the door to those who beat upon it. Her white face and bosom showed ghastly above her splendid dress in the gray light. She crept a little closer and stared at Andreas. His last energy appeared to have left him, his head sunk helplessly upon her lavender pillow, crimsoning it. A little early wind blowing in through the open window fluttered his thick yellow hair and her long curls. There came the sound of the Conte Raymond cursing and struggling with the door.
Andreas put out his beautiful hand and caught her down. “Giovanna—tie up my arm——”
She flung the hand from her.
“You’ll stain my dress,” she said, and laughed light-headedly.
At that he looked up, his eyes burning blue in his gray face.
“Are you going to let them in?” he asked under his breath.
She made no answer and he staggered to his feet, supporting himself by the bed post. He stared into her dark eyes and read her purpose. “You damned witch,” he said, panting. “I am still strong enough to kill you—remember that—afterwards——”
He seized her as he spoke. Utter scorn and wrath shone in his eyes. He turned her about, his bloody fingers on her long throat.
“I could kill you now,” he said. He laughed in a fury and pressed his pale lips to her bare shoulder—“good-by—Giovanna,” and he let her go.
She wiped her throat, where he had touched her, slowly with the ends of her hair, then she gathered up her glittering dress and ran to the door and opened it.
The fifteen rushed in and Andreas of Hungary stood against the bed post to meet them.
“A rope!” shouted Conte Raymond.
Lello d’Aquila cut down the cord from the Queen’s bed with his dagger… the others were upon the King. The Conte Raymond seized him round the waist and after a desperate resistance felled him and dragged him by his long hair and his shoulders to the door.
The Queen stood there with her hand on the bolt as she had opened it, and as her husband was dragged past her, he flung out his hand in his agony and clutched her dress and her hair.
Roberto of Cyprus leaped forward and cut her free. The King, still struggling fiercely, was forced down the steps into the outer room.
The others, following, loosened the Queen’s hold and closed the door upon her.
“Make haste,” said Raymond de Cabane, panting, “some one will be roused.”
“The balcony!” cried de Fondi.
“Ludovic,” moaned the King. They drew him to the window, Raymond with his knee on his breast to keep him down.
They got him out among the roses, and there he struggled with the tears of impotent anguish running down his cheeks. He half got upon his feet, but Lello d’Aquila flung the rope from the Queen’s bed round his neck.
As the King felt it tightening there, he made a last wild effort to rise, but they drew the knot and pushed him and dragged him on to the parapet.
Even then his dying strength was almost too much for them. Bertrand d’Artois turned away and fainted at the horror of the sight. Di Terliggi let go his hold, but Raymond de Cabane and the others threw him over the balcony and hurled their weight desperately upon the other end of the rope.
Then Conte Raymond looked over, leaning from the stone parapet and the scattered roses, and saw him writhing in mid air with impotent fingers clutching at his throat.
“A fine death for a King!” he called, and severed the cord with his dagger.
Andreas of Hungary fell the height of three storeys on to the flowers of the convent garden.
They listened a moment, then, scrambling over one another in a mad panic, rushed from the room.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
THE AUBURN CURL
Maria d’Anjou, roused by distant cries, and finding her door for the first time in many hours unguarded, hastily threw on some of her clothes and ran out into the convent corridor.
She listened. That sound of shouting and crying coming through the pale-lit convent made her shudder; she connected it wildly and vaguely with the King’s visit and the fact that she had been kept a prisoner all day. She hurried down the dim gray stairs, not knowing where she went, and found herself in the great quiet hall of the convent. She paused and listened again.
A shriek rang out—and another—Maria, maddened by a sense of helplessness, confused by the strange light, ran up and down wildly. She could not find her way about nor discover any living soul abroad. With her limbs trembling she rushed down the gaunt passages until she came upon a mellow light softening the grayness—the candles of the chapel glowing through its open door.
Maria, panting, with her terrified face half-veiled by her fallen chestnut hair, her violet gown gathered hastily about her, turned into the chapel and confronted the six monks who knelt before the altar. The high springing tracery of arch and window was half revealed by the yellow candle-flames; the long, black habits of the monks showed somberly against the dim, painted glories of the altar.
“Something is happening,” said Maria, with dry lips. “What were those shrieks?”
The first monk turned about and stared at her. “We heard nothing, Princess.”
Indeed, now all was quiet, utterly quiet. Maria waited a second, then spoke.
“I have been a prisoner all day—I saw the King ride up—” Her accent became full of horror. “I think—it was his voice that I heard just now.”
The monks all crossed themselves in silence.
“Will you come with me to find him?” asked Maria, putting the hair back from her haggard face. “Where are his friends—will you rouse them? I think—I think they were murdering him.”
Without a word or gesture, their faces hidden in their deep cowls, the monks came slowly toward the door, each bending the knee to the altar as they passed. One put a candle into Maria’s hand, and in his toneless voice bade her lead them where she would.
“Hush!” she answered, and her eyes dilated as she crouched against the wall.
There came a sound of subdued but steady tramping; of a number of men walking stealthily, but heavily. Maria, gazing from the chapel door down the dark corridor, saw a little group pass at its far end. One held a lantern, and the light flashed, and the face of Raymond de Cabane, the chain collar of the man behind him, and the fair head of Bertrand d’Artois, who hung like a sick man between two others. They passed hurriedly and the passage was dark again.
“Where do they come from?” whispered Maria hoarsely. “Where do those stairs come from that they have descended?”
“The King’s room and the Queen’s room,” answered the man. “From the Royal rooms of the convent.”
Maria shivered.
“Rouse the Hungarians,” she cried, “bring some one——”
The monk behind her, she went down the corridor, walking unsteadily, the smoking flame of the perfumed candle bringing out her wild face and the flung-back splendor of her hair from the surrounding darkness.
In this manner, meeting no one, they reached the room from which the King’s chamber opened. Cold with dread, Maria looked about her, saw the fallen table, the poor scattered lilies, the torn tapestry. She gave a heart-smitten cry.
“Andreas!” she tried to call, and found her voice would not rise above a whisper. She stumbled to his chamber door, saw the dagger that bolted it, and now shrieked aloud.
One of the passionless monks withdrew the dagger, and with a sick catch at her heart Maria entered, fearing to see her cousin murdered, stretched on his bed, fearing…
Nothing—the room empty—yet as horrible as anything her fears had pictured—the tumbled bed, the clothes and boots as he had flung them down—the broken chain and the unfinished letter on the table—all desolate in the brightening light… she saw his sword in the corner and his hunting knife. So—he was without arms.
She picked up the letter and the chain, placed them in the bosom of her dress, and came back to the monks.
“He is not there,” she said, and extinguished her candle; it was so light they did not need it.
“Perchance he is with the Queen,” said one of the Benedictines.
Maria turned to her sister’s door. As she crossed the floor the strengthening daylight showed her strange, dark marks upon the floor—the little red roses, too, were torn from their place.
“Giovanna!” She struck on the Queen’s door wildly. All old dreads, old horrors, black visions of forsaken days and weeping nights came crowding upon her. Impossible horrors seemed realized in a reality worse than any dream. “Giovanna! Where is the King? Andreas!”
The door was locked from within and there came no answer.
“O God! pity me,” she moaned. She stumbled into the room again and fell on her knees beside the stains on the floor. “Look!” she shrieked. “Blood—wet blood.” She put her finger on one of the dark patches and held it up stained with red.
“And behold here by the window,” exclaimed a monk. Maria, dragging herself upon her knees, followed the trail of blood. At the sight upon the balcony she shrieked again—on the defiled roses lay little locks of bloody yellow hair and shreds of white linen. Tied to the parapet was a red silk cord.
“I can’t look over,” cried Maria frantically. “This is his blood—his hair—they have murdered him——”
She hung back, clinging to the window frame as one of the monks advanced and, leaning forward, gazed below.
“Do you see anything, padre?” she muttered.
“There is something among the flowers—but I cannot see for the syringa bushes.”
“Is it—is it a man, padre?”
“Jesu! look down upon us! I see a man—one of his hose is white—the other pink——”
“It is the King!” screamed Maria.
She fell on her knees again and gathered up the fragments of his hair, the little scraps of his shirt, and pressed them to her cold bosom.
“It is over now,” she said. “They have murdered him.” She shook with great tearless sobs, then rose and gathered her dress round her breast.
“I am going to him.”
They followed her down the dark winding stair into the quiet garden.
A breeze blew softly from Melito heavy with the scent of grapes; the sky was glowing with an amber color flushed with rose; the cedars along the convent wall stood out clear cut, purple against the dawn; the soft-hued poplars shook silver leaves; in the flowerless lilac bushes a thrush was singing as Maria and the monks entered the waiting spaces.
The grass was wet with last night’s rain. She had lost her shoes, and her bare feet and her falling dress brushed the moisture from the flowers.
They found him under the balcony among the syringa with the rope round his neck. The monks knelt, two at his feet, two at his head, and began reciting the penitential psalms in a low monotone.
Maria stared at him a moment, then fell down at his side all cold on the wet grass.
The murderers had left little of the splendid Andreas. There was no trace in this mangled flesh of the gallant youth who had ridden into the convent a few hours ago. The brutal fall had finished their handiwork. Her mad eyes could not trace even the semblance of his face in that piteous head… only his hand—his beautiful hand, lay out on the grass unmarred. She took hold of that and laid her cheek to it, while the sun broke through the blushing sky in gold. Then she saw that there was something in his hand; a piece of embroidery, a lock of hair; she drew them from the dead fingers; a long auburn curl roughly severed—a gold brocade embroidered with a purple peacock and a crimson rose.
“O God! be merciful,” breathed Maria. She rose stiffly from beside the corpse and turned away across the garden, walking mechanically toward the house.
And after her rose the murmur of the psalms, a steady rise and fall through the laurels and lilac.
The whole convent was roused, the alarm had spread. Maria met Konrad of Gottif, fully armed, a drawn sword in his hand, rushing from the door.
The sight of him roused her into a flash of energy. “The King is murdered!” she cried hoarsely, catching hold of him—“he is in the garden with his head crushed in—they hanged him—from the balcony——”
The Hungarian uttered a sound of terrible woe and wrath and tried to push on, but she detained him.
“Fly! fly!” she said, “while there is time—they will prevent it soon—fly to Hungary——”
She crushed up the curl and the brocade in her hand.
“Bring King Ludovic to avenge his brother,” she said with a sudden ghastly composure.
Konrad of Gottif struck his hand fiercely against his forehead. “Is he dead—dead?”
“As we all shall be,” shuddered Maria. “Did you not bring your King to save us—quick—fetch Count Henryk—get your horses——”
She fell against the wall and could say no more. Konrad of Gottif looked at her.
“I will go, Princess; but, by God, I shall return.” He ran out into the garden.
Maria crawled slowly and painfully to her chamber. Noises were about, hurryings to and fro, but she met no one. When she was in her room she took from her bosom the letter, the chain, and the torn yellow curls, and laid them on the bed, and wept over them bitterly. Through her sick tears she read the few lines across the top of the parchment:
To my ever beloved Lord Ludovic:
The Queen has submitted, I am a King indeed with nothing to wish for—I rode through Naples to-day very triumphantly. We killed a boar to-day larger than any I have seen at home——
The writing broke off abruptly where his tired hand had dropped. Maria laid it down reverently, and with a kind of holy horror picked up the broken chain. It bore a case set with rough pearls containing two locks of hair, one yellow—like his own—the other black, of great brilliancy, as if gold sparkled underneath it, and a crystal cylinder with lapis-lazuli ends that encased some sacred relic, then there was the little amulet.
Maria stared at these things, and her throat and eyes ached with tears. She put beside them the auburn curls and the scrap of brocade.
“O Giovanna! Giovanna!” she sobbed.
Thinking of him young and splendid yester evening, writing light-heartedly to his brother, thinking of him now shapeless in the garden with the monks at his feet, thinking of those shrieks of agony that had rung through the silent convent, a passion of utter fury against his murderers shook her. She gathered up those poor objects of his tenderly and laid them in her jewel casket (despoiled of its contents by the Queen to pay for the loyalty of her followers) and locked it and put the key, together with the auburn curl and the brocade, under her pillow.
Then she wept anew, and flung herself along her bed, face downward.
The bright sun crept in through the narrow window, but Maria covered her eyes from it, remembering what it had shone upon through the syringa bushes.
Horror and misery in the form of cowled monks seemed to pace the room. The events of the night rose before her, dreadful, distorted. She sank into a feverish, half-conscious swoon, and terrible visions showed themselves to her like pages of a book turned over. She saw Giovanna on a gigantic white horse, riding over Naples and scattering cities like dust beneath her hoofs; she saw the sun rising out of the sea and a warrior lean from the East and take it from the sky and place it on his arm as a shield; she saw Giovanna again, calm and crowned, at the church door; then she saw the church crack and split, pressing the Queen into nothingness; then it seemed the world, gold and glittering, floated in eddying currents of blue, and over all the faces of it were great armies that struggled together and the blood that dropped from them stained the blue and put out the little pure stars that circled round about; then the Queen again, half naked with Andreas clinging to her hair and gown, and hideous shapes striking at him till he fell backward into a great void and lay at last still, with no head, under syringa bushes, and the syringa blossoms swelled into trumpets that blew a blast for vengeance, louder and louder, and the trumpets grew into armed men that loomed gigantic, and the blood of Andreas became a crimson flag that a warrior held aloft. Maria ran down to him and they stepped past the headless body of Andreas and began mounting innumerable steps, up, up, until a great wind began to take their garments, and they came upon a bare room where Giovanna crouched in a corner. And her auburn curls had grown over the room. They had to fight through them, like silken nets round their feet they clung, till at last the warrior pulled her from the meshes, and she showed very small and thin; he dragged her to the balcony where yellow hair and roses lay; he dragged her to the edge of the balcony…
Maria sat up on her bed, raving with horror, on the verge of madness, when her distended eyes caught sight of a sparrow that had flown in through the window and beat desperately round the room.
It steadied her, bringing her back to reality. With a fierce effort she struggled into self-control and got weakly from the bed, and, after a little, caught the frightened bird and put it forth again.
The sight of the fair, warm landscape quieted her. The sun was high in the soft, misty heavens, above the yellowing beeches and chestnuts rose the clustering towers of Aversa, toward Melito were the vineyards and orange groves. Her tears renewed themselves yet peacefully, and she returned to her bed and lay quiet. It was not the time now to lose her wits. If she kept her senses and her strength there was much she might do—she was Anjou as well as Giovanna; she had Alba, Giordano—fine estates in men and money; there was the Pope at Avignon and Ludovic of Hungary—if she went cautiously…