The door was lightly opened and Giovanna entered; not the gorgeous Giovanna of her visions, but a pale, tired-looking girl with lips feverishly red.
Maria could not speak to her. She lay still, thinking of the curls under her pillow.
The Queen came slowly to the bedside, and sat down heavily on the coverlet.
“You must make ready to come to Naples,” she said.
Maria looked up from her pillow with swollen eyes. “Ah, how you have been weeping!” said the Queen curiously; “you know what happened last night?”
“Yes,” answered her sister. “I have seen him——”
Giovanna winced.
“My God! did you dare?”
Maria sat up and gazed at the Queen.
“Giovanna, who murdered him?”
“Do you think I know?” cried the Queen. “What do you mean? They slew him last night in some quarrel—I do not know anything.”
“You did not hear the noise?” asked Maria. “Nor me knocking at your door?”
“No, no.”
“You did not lure him to this lonely convent that——”
“No,” interrupted the Queen fiercely. “No——”
Maria’s blue eyes stared in a strange fashion at her sister, with an expression Giovanna had not seen in them before, with a look that made her draw back before her sister.
“Listen, Maria,” she said feverishly. “We have all been playing deep—my friends have done this for me—I am innocent, I did not know before, no, nor till I heard he was dead—yet I cannot weep a man I hated—my rival and my enemy—let him go as better men have gone when they have staked their lives against kingdoms—as for me, I am the Queen again—the Queen——”
“And innocent—you say?” said Maria evenly.
Giovanna rose, shaking from head to foot.
“Do you think these men would make a woman their confidant? I know nothing, nothing.”
“Why was I kept a prisoner yesterday?”
“Ask Raymond de Cabane, he is master, not I,” flashed the Queen.
Maria put her hand over the pillow. It was as if she could feel the curl burning through like flame to her flesh.
“Giovanna—when did you last see him—the King?”
“When he came—for a few moments—Maria, do you believe what I am telling you?”
The Queen walked up and down the room, twisting her fingers together.
“Do you believe I am innocent?” she asked in a low voice. The gold, purple, and crimson of the borders of her dress flashed as she passed and repassed the window.
Maria, with her hand on the pillow, uttered the first lie of her life.
“Yea, I do believe you, Giovanna.”
The Queen looked at her over her shoulder.
“Who will do otherwise?” she said proudly.
Maria suddenly began laughing hysterically.
“Your dress—it is all torn at the side, Giovanna!”
The Queen paused instantly in her walk and gazed at her sister.
“Your beautiful dress!” laughed Maria wildly.
“Sancia tore it,” said the Queen, moistening her scarlet lips. “It will mend… get ready to come to Naples.” She put her hand to her side. “Why did you speak of my dress?” she added.
Maria had fallen back on the pillows.
“It is such a lovely gown,” she answered. “It seemed a pity.”
“Yes,” replied Giovanna. “It is a pity.”
And she abruptly left the room.
Maria d’Anjou sprang on to the floor when she was alone, and her face was distorted with passion.
“Liar!” she sobbed. “Liar! We have all been playing deep you say—but you, by God, you have not won yet—even though you have staked—and lost—your soul——”
CHAPTER TWELVE.
THE LAST MASQUERADE
They held a great fête at the Castel del Nuovo, more splendid than had been known for many years. The dead, disfigured King was in his tomb in Santa Chiara, and no one spoke his name.
It was three days before the coronation of the young Queen, and the marriage contract between Raymond de Cabane, Conte d’Eboli, and Maria d’Anjou had that day been drawn up by the notary Nicolo de Melaggo. They who knew the state of the Kingdom, the discontent of the people, the quarrels of the nobles, the emptiness of the Queen’s coffers—those who guessed at a slow vengeance gathering against the Kingdom that had slain its King, marked a wildness, a reckless profusion in the festivities that showed both defiance and imprudence.
It was the Queen’s wish that she should shine with great magnificence before her people. Raymond de Cabane, of all things no statesman, made little effort to restrain her with talk of unpaid troops and a murmuring people; he also was near the summit of his desires, and careless of the last step.
The splendor of the scene in the great hall and garden was beyond words. The Duke di Duras, masked in purple, leaned from the gallery with the Contessa di Terliggi, who wore a trembling crown of peacocks’ feathers, and watched the shifting, laughing crowd below.
“Can she pay for it?” asked the Contessa, and her black eyes flashed through her bronze-colored mask.
“An Emperor could not pay for it,” answered the Duke. “They say the supper cost a year’s revenue—and the prizes at the tournament yesterday were fabulous.”
“It does not matter,” said the Contessa. “Let her dance to ruin—after all, it is better than crawling to it!”
The Duke smoothed his silver sleeve.
“But what of us?”
She shrugged until her white shoulders rose out of her bright green gown.
“We must die as gayly as we have lived, Carlo.”
“That,” answered Duras, “is the talk of a woman—the way the Queen talks. At the same time you are both of you trusting in the men to avert the disaster.”
She turned her face to him. Her painted lips and her round chin showed under her mask.
“Carlo, why are you despondent?” She laughed and laid her warm, bare arm along the gallery rail and caressed his clasped hands with her little fingers.
“Guilia, enchantress, the Queen has absolutely no money—she has squeezed from her own estates and borrowed from the nobles——”
“My husband,” said the Contessa, “told me that she had great hopes in Bertrand d’Artois—his father has a great treasure at Santa Agatha.”
“Yes—but the old man is close as a Jew.”
“Well, I suppose one could take it by force—at least, while the money does last, Carlo, let us enjoy it.”
“For my part,” said the Duke, “I do not enjoy dancing on a triumphal arch with a loose keystone. There is Hungary—and Avignon——”
“And the present moment,” interrupted Guilia di Terliggi. “And—me——”
“Sweetheart, you beguile me into folly——”
“Am I not folly?” said the Contessa. “Am I not a woman? And the business of a woman lies, not with past or future, but with the present—now, I am—to-morrow, I may not be—yet I could die laughing any day, being Folly, who cannot weep—and so—and so——”
“Guilia, you are entrancing——”
“Hush! I would see the Queen.”
They bent over the gallery and looked down; in the press of gorgeous costumes they could not discern Giovanna or her sister.
“She is changed of late,” said the Contessa. “She laughs too much and makes a show of herself—she did not use to——”
“You think she knew—about the King?”
“Knew!” the Contessa laughed. “My husband will never speak of it to me, but I think—” She lowered her voice. “I think the Queen was even there—when it was done——”
“Christ, no!”
“Sancia di Renato tells me she was shut out of her mistress’s room that night—and she says ever since that the Queen will sleep with a light—and that she puts her hands to her neck as if to loosen something—she will have no cords to her bed and fancies she is being strangled.”
“I have noticed that,” answered the Duke. “But I do not think she more than knew——”
“Listen,” insisted the Contessa. “The day after the Queen herself took all the sheets off her bed, and rolled them in the coverlet—and forbade Sancia, very sharply, to meddle with them. But before they left the convent the Queen took occasion to call the washerwoman, who had come with her linen, and gave her the bundle. Sancia followed the washerwoman, and found her taking the sheets off the King’s bed to wrap him in, for even de Cabane didn’t care to leave him in the garden—once the sun grew fierce—and Sancia looked into the bundle, and all the Queen’s bed linen was dabbled over with blood. Sancia spoke of it to the woman, who said the Queen had told her that she had cut her foot on a broken wine glass, and as this happened on the night of the murder, she desired the sheets washed quietly—to which end she gave the woman a ducat. Now Sancia knows that is a lie—there was no wound on the Queen’s foot and no glass in her chamber.”
“You think, then—” began the Duke.
She interrupted.
“Oh, I think a great deal—put it to yourself, my Carlo—if they slew the King in the outer chamber, her door locked, as she says, the whole time, how did those bloodstains come upon her coverlet? And how was it that her dress, that was whole the night before, was torn in the morning, and how was it they could not find the piece, though search was made everywhere?”
“Where was it, then?” asked di Duras.
The Contessa dropped her voice.
“In the King’s hand. Who knows—and the Queen lives in terror that someone may perhaps—who knows?”
“Di Terliggi must know, then—and the others.”
“They will not speak—no one dare believe them if they did. As for my husband, he went so sick he knows not what happened.” She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders.
The Duke shuddered. “Do not let us speak of it, Guilia—Maria, at least, believes her sister’s innocence——”
“Oh, bah!” cried the Contessa. “She knows well enough—she knows Raymond did the thing and the Queen sanctioned it——”
“She would not be so calm an’ she did,” replied the Duke, firmly. “There is no evil nor condoning of evil in Maria d’Anjou.”
The Contessa laughed.
“My simple Carlo, she is marrying the most powerful man in the Kingdom—she is not displeased. There are no saints in this court of Naples.”
“The Queen,” said Duras, and pointed to her, passing through the throng beneath.
“Ah,” answered the Contessa, watching her curiously. “Whatever they may say, she is not beautiful——”
Giovanna was fantastically dressed in a gown of close brown, clouded with veils of hyacinth blue; her auburn hair hung down in thin curls to her waist; her mask was of gold brocade; her slender arms were bare and her fingers almost hidden in rings. She was leaning, rather heavily, on the arm of Luigi of Taranto, who wore a vizard in the shape of a wolf’s face and a gray mantle.
A hundred figures of fantasy followed her: men and women in extraordinary rich garments; dyed, painted faces, distorted masks, bare limbs and tumbled autumn flowers, flashing, interchanging colors, and a riot of jewels.
Their shrieks of laughter, their broken songs, rose to the ears of the two watchers in the gallery.
“She is fair enough,” said the Duke, who was gazing at the Queen.
“Well, she has broken no hearts yet,” smiled the Contessa.
“She could an’ she would,” he answered. “But she is too proud.”
Guilia di Terliggi shrugged her shoulders again carelessly. “Where is Maria?” she asked.
Duras rose from his leaning posture on the gallery rails and the silver tissue of his coat glittered in the hazy lamplight.
Some of the revelers were running up the stairs and invading the quiet spaces; a half-naked girl, masked as a leopard and hung with roses, and a minstrel in pink, with a zither fluttering yellow ribbons, ran by laughing. The Contessa and Carlo di Durazzo turned and descended into the great hall.
The doors opening on to the garden were flung wide and the trees without and the room within were lit by softly-glowing lamps that mingled with the ivory moonlight; the walls were hidden beneath hangings of velvet and brocade. Everywhere the triumphant lilies of Anjou gleamed in gold and silver.
Giovanna had moved to the dais where the forgotten King often sat. She sat there now among green cushions, laughing. Before her a space was cleared, where a tall girl in white danced with the dwarf in black, to the accompaniment of faint instruments, played by gorgeous minstrels.
Shining vases of porphyry and serpentine, crushed full of trailing flowers, stood on the steps of the dais; fine white dogs moved to and fro in stately fashion, and among them dwarfs dressed like animals; from the garden came the sound of flutes and song and laughter; negro slaves in yellow and scarlet passed up and down, carrying salvers heavy with grapes and peaches; costly wines were handed about, spilled and drunk with careless profusion; the masquers danced together, danced apart and swirled round, a many-hued wave of brilliancy.
From out the thickest crowd came a lady in a turquoise blue habit and a black mask and ran toward the door. A misty white veil floated about her and hid her hair.
A mask in dusty lavender and russet red detached himself from the dancers and pursued her.
The lady turned down a side path, where the lamps glowed, globes of light in the rose bushes, and he followed to a marble fountain, where the water plashed softly into a cool, deep basin and wetted the citron leaves. The moonlight lay ivory-hued and clear over everything. From the distant chestnuts a voice came singing:
No triumphs with red trophies hung
And measured march of captive Kings,
No glories such as Ovid sung
And Petrarch sings
Could please me as your boat within the foam,
Your white boat—the evening brings
To Naples home.
The lady sank on the edge of the fountain and looked at the man following her.
“Messer Raymond de Cabane,” she said quietly: “are you also tired of the noise within?”
He took off his mask impatiently and showed his sullen face.
“I am soon weary of folly.” He sat beside her and stared into the fountain.
The song rose again, plaintively:
The Emperor’s victories could not buy
The joy of your return
When your late white sail draws nigh
Where my signals burn;
Not all the pomp of Germany, or France or Rome,
Are glad as I when your oars turn
To Naples home—
“You have wondered,” said Raymond de Cabane, speaking slowly, “at the Queen’s profusion?”
“At nothing,” answered Maria d’Anjou. She shook out her veil in the moonlight, and her voice was as expressionless as her mask.
“She stands on the edge of ruin,” said the Conte Raymond, speaking very low. “The people seethe beneath her rule. Hungary is on the watch, and Avignon——”
“Well?” asked Maria.
“She is straining the resources of the Kingdom for this coronation, but I have saved your estates. I have wrung from her the moneys of the title of Duke of Calabria. She does refuse me nothing—we, Madonna, shall not suffer by her follies.”
Maria’s hand, like a lily in the moonshine, floated lightly on the surface of the water. He gazed at her black mask with straining eyes.
“Are you not pleased, Madonna, that I have spared your revenues?”
“Oh, you have done so much for me,” she answered quietly. “Even—murder.”
“Even that,” he said somberly. “Is not a man in earnest who will slay a King to win you? Maria, I am a mighty man. What I have set myself to do I have done——”
He broke off and scowled. She knew, without his utterance of it, that he had murdered Andreas, since she must escape him while the King reigned; that from the first he had espoused Giovanna’s cause for her sake; but she said, under her breath:
“For your own life, too, messer, you slew him. You would have had small chance of it had he remained.”
“He was in my way,” frowned Raymond. “And he went.”
“And you walk abroad unscathed,” said Maria curiously.
“Who should dare to touch me?” he asked.
She drew her dripping hand from the fountain and laid it on her blue gown.
“You are not afraid?” she questioned, “of vengeance?”
“Of whose vengeance?”
“He has a brother who is a king.”
“I do not think he will loose his armies on to Italy for that boy’s sake.”
“No,” said Maria d’Anjou. She pulled at the citron leaves and scattered them over the ground. “No. I do not think he will—and as for me——”
“Princess,” he put in, quickly. “As for you—I will bring you to the throne if you will——”
“And Giovanna?” She gave a little start.
“She is in my power—I shall prevent her remarriage—you stand next.” He spoke brokenly, unsteadied by the thought that at length he had moved her.
“Well,” said Maria softly. “That is as fortune wills. You see, I am very gentle, Conte Raymond, nor fierce with you as I was wont to be—since we have come together by such ways—since you can do so much for me.”
The blood rose to his swarthy face. He clutched the edge of the fountain, leaning toward her.
“You will endure me?” he said unsteadily.
Her blue eyes flashed through her mask.
“Oh, I am reconciled to fortune, messer—why not you as well as any other my sister should select for me—why not you as well as Ludovic of Hungary?”
At that name his eyes shone jealously. “He would not do for you what I have done—he is light, unstable——”
“So once before you told me,” answered Maria. “But I do not think of him.”
“By God, I do hope you think of none but me,” said Conte Raymond haughtily. “Would the day had come, Princess, when I could take you to Giordano—I do not love to see you here.”
He paused, then added earnestly: “As you look to pleasure me, be not too much with the Queen.”
She looked at him quickly.
“And why?”
The dark face clouded; he frowned at her.
“Tell me,” breathed Maria, twisting her veil in her fingers. “Giovanna—how much did she know about the King?”
“That is no matter,” he answered fiercely. “Do not speak to me of that again—we soon shall have done with her.”
Maria rose, slim and straight, casting her shadow over him. “You will take me away from here when we are wed, Raymond?”
He sprang up, the embroidery on his clothes glittering.
“Maria! Maria!”
An elusive shape of white and blue, she avoided him as he put out his hand to take hers and fled through the citron bushes, with her dress gathered up from her silver shoes. She came upon a scattered group on a sloping lawn above a little lake. Under a dull white statue Guilia di Terliggi lay asleep, with her mask slipping from her face, and her bare shoulders gleaming on the grass, near by her sister, Filippa da Morcane, sat, gazing at herself in a gilt mirror, her cloudy black hair falling over her amber gown, a page and a dog lay beside them, and Carlo di Durazzo, caressing a monkey in a mauve coat, lounged near the edge of the lake and sang to the beautiful Cleopatra di Montalto.
The Contessa da Morcane looked up as Maria passed and laughed, which roused her sister to sit up and stare. They were Raymond’s sisters, and the wives of two of the King’s murderers. Maria would not look at them; she ran along the borders of the lake among the tall irises, and her shadow was clear in the moonshine. She came into the darkness of some cypress trees. The ground was soft, damp and fragrant; through the black boughs and flat foliage great silver stars twinkled. Maria, pausing, heard a sound of passionate sobbing.
“Who is it?” she asked, and came nearer the vast trunk.
A woman’s figure showed in the gloom. Maria unfastened her mask and flung it on the ground and set her foot on it.
“Here we unmask!” she said, wildly. “Here we may weep, I think—for there are none to see that our paint be spoiled——”
“Ah, ’tis the Princess,” came a voice from the shadows. “I am Sancia di Renato,” she struggled with her sobs.
“Sweetheart,” said Maria, “what is the matter?”
A wooden seat was round the tree. There crouched Sancia, a vague shape, touched here and there with the moonlight that fell through the cypress branches. Maria came up to her.
“I am going away,” whispered Sancia. “I will go back to Padua. To-day the Queen struck me.”
Maria seated herself beside her.
“Giovanna struck you?”
Sancia sobbed afresh.
“Hush!” said Maria. “Tell me of it—” She laid her cool hand on the other’s shoulder.
Sancia di Renato strove with herself awhile, then faltered out to the darkness:
“Sweet Madonna—it is not that she struck me—I will go into a convent—it is remorse, about—the King.”
Maria’s hand fell to her side. “What do you know about that?”
Fresh, miserable weeping checked Sancia’s words.
“I—think so much of it, and I dare not speak.” Cold and still Maria listened. Sancia gathered courage from the silence.
“I will go home—this is a sinful place—a Renato is too proud to bear these insults.”
Maria roused herself from terrible recollections and began drawing from the weeping girl the trouble. By degrees the story came out.
It seemed that at the Queen’s command she had carried a lying message to Andreas in Aversa, knowing it was false; the message that had said five men alone remained in the convent, and Raymond de Cabane had returned to his estates. Giovanna had said it was a ruse to save her friends from arrest, but after the events of that horrible night Sancia put another meaning to it, and remorse and horror at her share in the crime had been preying on her soul.
Maria elicited this from broken ejaculations, prayers to the saints and wild tears. It was obvious that the girl’s mind had almost given way under a constant dread and horror of her mistress. She confided to Maria that she thought Giovanna was a daughter of the devil, a soulless evil spirit. She told her, with shudders, the story of the sheets, and how, the morning after the King’s murder, she had risen cold with terror, after lying and listening to those shrieks, and crept down the corridor to the Queen’s room——
“It had two doors,” said Sancia feverishly, “and the passage to my room opened from that near the bed—it was locked—but I looked through the keyhole—” She clung to Maria, trembling. The black cypress and the stars encompassed them in silence; Maria shuddered.
“I saw her on her hands and knees on the floor between the bed and the window, and she was rubbing the boards very busily with a piece of linen—then—O God!—she looked up, and her lip was curled back from her teeth and her eyes were turned in—so that they were white and blind——”
She moaned, hiding her face on Maria’s shoulder. “I am afraid of her,” she sobbed. “She has lost her soul, and for the sake of mine I dare not stay—I have to sleep with her, and I cannot—I cannot.”
“O Heavens!” murmured Maria. “What does she do?”
Sancia clutched her tightly, and the words came fearfully and brokenly:
“She will sit up in bed and feel about her throat—then along the bed post, as if she sought for a cord—sometimes she will get out of bed and go to the window; sometimes she will take off the sheets and roll them up.”
“She is crazed,” shuddered Maria. “Yet is she sane enough before company.”
“She is a devil,” panted Sancia. “The other day I came upon her suddenly—she was in her room talking—and there was another voice, but when I entered she was alone!”
Maria crossed herself with a shaking hand.
“Have you spoken of this to any?”
“To the Contessa di Terliggi—but she thinks naught of it——”
“You should not dishonor our house before Raymond de Cabane’s sister!”
“What am I to do?” cried Sancia wildly. “You, also, seemed in league with them—you are to marry the Conte—meekly, it seemed, and you must know——”
“Listen,” interrupted Maria firmly. “Whatever you see, whatever you hear—I shall never be the wife of Raymond de Cabane.”
“Madonna! how will you prevent it?” asked Sancia weakly.
“I have found means to write to the Pope and to Ludovic of Hungary,” said Maria under her breath. “Count Konrad escaped—that night——”
“Ah!—you have had no answer?”
“No answer! no answer!” replied Maria, mournfully. “But I wait—to the very last—oh, Sancia! what it means to endure these men—to speak to them—these cowards who slew the bright young King! But I, also, can play a part to serve my turn—” She broke off hastily. “Why did she strike you to-day?”
In awestruck accents Sancia related how the Queen still kept the dress she had worn at Aversa, and constantly looked at it and turned it over, and that to-day, being hastily summoned from her room to see the Lombard money-lenders, she had left her coffer open and this gown on her bed.
“And I could not avoid,” shivered Sancia, “looking at the dress and wondering where that great piece could have gone and why she kept the gown she had worn that night—and she returned in her quiet way, and seeing me looking at it, struck me very passionately and snatched the dress away—and I will go home to Padua.”
“Wait a little while,” answered Maria. “Wait until my wedding day—wait until the Queen is crowned—maybe Ludovic of Hungary will come—maybe——”
They clung together in the shade of the cypress and wept in a tired fashion; and in the beautiful gardens under the moon, facing to the dawn, lay the silk-clad revelers and sang and slept; in the lamplit hall they still danced carelessly among the dying flowers.
Queen Giovanna leaned back on her throne, with her rouged lips smiling and her violet eyes proudly surveying the magnificence of her court.
And eastward, along the banks of the Volturno, toward Benevento, a vast army, dark under the stars, was spreading, advancing steadily toward the riotous and languid capital.
Nearer, as the Queen laughed; nearer, as the musicians played, and the perfumes of the feast rose with the songs, as the blue bay brightened in the dawn, and Maria d’Anjou prayed amid her tears under the cypress tree, that silent army swept through Foligno, on toward Naples.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
THE THUNDERBOLT
Giovanna of Naples called to her the Conte Raymond on her coronation morning and spoke to him alone in the little somber anteroom to her bed-chamber.
The early sun cast the lilies of Anjou in golden doubles on the floor. So had they lain when Andreas of Hungary first met his wife’s sister in this same room, while the old King died within.
The Queen stood by a chair, on which glittered her royal mantle; she wore a white and yellow gown and a pearl-sown vest that reached to her throat and encased her body stiffly; brilliant buttons shone on her long, tight sleeves, and her auburn hair was twisted with rubies. Raymond de Cabane, immovable, quiet, lifted his black eyes once to her splendor, then kept them on the ground.
“To-day I shall be crowned,” said Giovanna. “To-day I make you Duke of Calabria and give you my sister—we are both satisfied, are we not, Conte?”
“Madonna,” he answered, “I have given you your desire and you pay my price—I am content.”
The Queen’s violet eyes unclosed.
“Do you take it in so poor a spirit—is it not a swelling triumph—a high victory for us?” she cried; then suddenly her tone was changed. “You could not be so much a devil,” she said unsteadily, “as to take lightly what we have paid so high to accomplish.” She sat down on her regal mantle and pulled a handkerchief from her bosom and pressed it to her lips. “Well, well,” she said feverishly, tapping her foot. “Do you want anything of me? I have been paying, paying all of you till you have fairly wrung the last ducat from me——”
“I want nothing more, Madonna,” said Conte Raymond, with a flicker of a smile. By giving him her sister, her vast estates and the title of heir to the throne Giovanna virtually acknowledged him her successor.
She caught his expression, and her eyes grew cunning.
“You and my second husband, my good lord, will have some policy to settle.” She crumpled her handkerchief, red with the paint from her lips, in restless hands.
“Your second husband, Madonna!” he said coldly. “I think a longer widowhood were wiser—whom do you think of?”
“I know not,” answered Giovanna impatiently. “But do you think I will rule Naples in lonely style? You have decreed to take your wife to Giordano——”
“You have other willing counselors,” said Raymond de Cabane.
She gave him a fierce look and stamped her foot. “You know what this Kingdom is—it is won, but it will prove hard to keep.” Her eager, trembling fingers clutched the chair rails. “Does not the Bishop of Cavaillon, my chancellor, tremble lest the Pope should interfere? The archbishops who crown me to-day, Pisi, Bari, Capua, and Brindisi, wait but a word from Avignon to—excommunicate me.”
“I know,” he answered.
The Queen’s chin sank upon her breast; her high, fair brows were contracted in a frown.
“And the people,” she said to herself. “The guilds are rioting—the master armorers and the bakers rose yesterday—I have the Veronese mercenaries, the French troops—there are more sailing from Marseilles—but the money—my God—I shall go mad for money.” She looked round wildly at Raymond. “The Lombard terms are too high—we cannot borrow there.”
“Better get the money from the Lombards than try to tax Naples,” said the Conte Raymond grimly. “They will not give, and half the country nobles are rebellious.”
“I must pay the Veronese,” muttered the Queen, “for their services in clearing out the Hungarians—Bertrand d’Artois might advance the money.”
Conte Raymond was silent. He saw that the Queen, with empty coffers, self-seeking counselors and a disaffected kingdom, was on the verge of a ruin a powerful, wealthy marriage alone could avert, and as all his power would be exerted to prevent this, he looked to rise to the throne she must fall from. The Queen, watching his coarse, swarthy face, seemed to guess something of his thoughts.
“You,” she said, in a low, tense voice, “you have been well paid.” She rose, shaking. “Get you gone with your reward—one by one you have come to me demanding your price and I have paid it—but enough, by God, enough—you will not make me a footstool to the throne, Conte Raymond—I will hold it despite you all—do you think I shall go unwed, that you may be my heir?”
He looked at her calmly. “What talk is this, Madonna—are you not crowned to-day—the summit of your ambition?”
She caught eagerly at his words.
“Yes, yes,” she answered. She slipped into her chair again with a desperate attempt at control. “I have all I have ever striven for—surely I am content. Raymond,” she looked at him furtively, “you have known me ever since I was a child—have I ever longed for anything, or cared for anything save ambition?”
“No,” he answered.
She made a restless movement in her chair. “Well, well, I must bring men from Provence—Venice, perhaps, might help me—there are many faithful to me.” Her violet eyes shifted from side to side; she rose. “That is all I have to say, Raymond.”
She stood stiffly, stooping a little, and her fingers worked in uncontrolled fashion in her heavy gown. The Conte, only waiting her permission to leave, turned to the door.
A little, quick sound from the Queen caused him to look back.
She had drawn herself erect, rigid, and her hands were at her throat, tearing open the collar of her dress. She struggled with it fiercely, until she had rent it apart over her bare neck and bosom.
“Raymond!” she said, in a stifling voice, as if invisible cords pressed the breath out of her. “Why did you let him come to me?”
It was the first time she had spoken of it. Raymond de Cabane fell back before her staring, inhuman eyes. “Why did you not lock your door?” he answered hoarsely.
She dropped her hands from her throat. “How was I to know”—she whispered quickly—“that it would take so long? You were fifteen to one.”
“He fought like ten,” frowned Raymond.
The Queen came toward him, swaying as she walked. “What did you do with him afterward?” she said, her eyes very bright and restless. “Every time I have seen him since he has had no head—how could you strangle him if he had no head?”
Raymond’s eyes shone fiercely.
“What have I to do with your fool’s talk——”
She began walking up and down with little, quick steps, like the padding of an animal, looking at Raymond sideways. “I did not forget anything—I rolled up the sheets and coverlets—I found a piece of linen and rubbed the floor——”
“This is the way to madness,” cried Raymond roughly, yet with some awe of her. “These are not things to talk of——”
She pulled herself up, looked at him a moment, then laughed quite sanely.
“It is going to be over hot for my pageant,” she said, with a glance at the blazing sun without. “We shall meet presently, Raymond.”
With some muttered words, he left her.
He thought, with a strange repulsion, of her slender girlish figure, her strange containment, her little, secretive movements; the white face, the violet eyes, the sudden, wild words, spoken so quietly, the desperate clutching at her throat—well, if she were crazed, the easier for him. Naples would owe small allegiance to a madwoman.
But when she appeared upon the castle steps, with her nobles about her, to take the head of her procession, there seemed no touch of wildness or insanity in her regal demeanor; she was elate, joyous and beautiful. The gold and scarlet, blue and crimson of her dress and mantle were vivid against her white palfrey. A canopy of noir and samite was upheld over her by four nobles in purple, and ten ladies went before her, scattering flowers. It was said afterward that never had a city been so magnificent as was this city on the coronation of a penniless Queen. From end to end the houses were hung with embroideries and garlands, many prepared for the crowning of the King, but used as readily by a careless, gay people in honor of Giovanna. The streets were lined with troops, that silenced with the spear-head such as muttered the name of Andreas. The trumpet and the drum drowned the grumble of discontent that now and then arose at the reckless profusion of the pageantry that flashed through sunlit Naples. Between palaces set amid palms and roses, under heavy standards that dared the vivid sky, past glimpses of the bay and distant blue-green islands, to the accompaniment of triumphant music, very gorgeously they came to the Church of San Gonnaro, whose gilt, bronze doors were flung wide to receive them.
Maria d’Anjou, pale and fair in red and purple, the princes of the blood in flaring brilliancy, the nobles and officers of the Kingdom, followed the last monarch of the Angevin Kings into the dark and holy church.
With an unfaltering step and steady eyes, Giovanna d’Anjou walked down the aisle amid the dim splendors of religion, toward the porphyry altar, where the priests, in splendid vestments, awaited her.
Her flaming royal garments burned in the somber silence. Amid the quiet arches was the tomb of Charles Martel, and she looked at it as she passed. Near it was a newer grave, with the mortar that fastened the stones on what lay beneath scarcely dry. Andreas of Hungary lay there; bright blue eyes, bright yellow hair, and gay, laughing youth, mangled clay now in the vaults beneath.
Giovanna came to the altar.
Did she think of him as she mounted the marble steps to receive her crown, did she feel that clutch at her dress? Did she hear that cry: “Giovanna—don’t let them in?” Did she picture him as he lay in the vaults beneath in his bloody shroud, almost as close to her as he would have been had he stood beside her as the King? Did there arise before her the thought of that long, gray dawn when she had wiped his blood from her chamber floor and rolled up, with guilty fingers, the horrid evidence of her bed coverlets?
The crowd that filled the church saw her head upheld on her slender neck proudly; saw her step up to the glittering glories of the altar, and sink on her knees on the embroidered cushion placed for her.
Her demeanor was calm. Only once she looked round, as if she saw someone kneeling beside her, there in the empty place where the King should have been. High, victorious singing rose from the gilded choir; the gorgeous courtiers fell away to right and left; the Queen was alone on the altar steps, her trailing mantles falling heavily on the marble, her hands clasped, her auburn hair coiled on her white neck.
Ugolino, Bishop of Castella, his robes blazing in the candlelight, stood beside the altar; beside him knelt the Lord of Brindisi, bearing the crown of the Angevin Kings on a tasseled cushion; round-faced acolytes in white swung censers, from which the cloudy perfume arose. Motionless, the Queen waited; she raised her eyes, and altar, lights and rich garments, the twisted porphyry pillars, the scarlet angel in the colored window, seemed to dance and reel together through the slow smoke of the incense.
She pressed her hands tightly on her breast. Her throat quivered, and her lips were drawn painfully. She repeated, in an expressionless voice, the oath to the Pope, and swore fealty to the legate.
They put the great crown on her head.
“How heavy it is!” she said.
The Bishop of Castella blessed her; the singing swelled and grew in triumph. Giovanna rose and gave her hand to Philip de Cavaillon, her chancellor, who presented her to the assembled nobles.
She descended into the church, the crown shining above the soft waves of her hair; they bent their heads in homage to her. She paused a moment, as her ladies lifted her train and surveyed the throng.
Maria stood, with bent head, beside Raymond de Cabane, who, with folded arms, watched the Queen. Behind him was Bertrand d’Artois, glancing with furtive eyes toward the tomb of Andreas. The dark beauty of Guilia di Terliggi shone beside the magnificence of her husband, and her sister, Filippa da Morcane, stood next to Carlo di Durazzo, the Queen’s cousin. Luigi of Taranto was close to the Queen, and behind him the nobles glittered away into the shadows of the lofty arches.
The Queen’s violet eyes flashed over them, then, with erect head and steady step, she passed down the aisle of the church, the joy bells pealing in her ears. She came out upon the cathedral steps, and the burning blue air was shaken with the triumphal bells of three hundred churches and the shouts of the soldiery and the populace.
The scent of the orange groves of Sorrento and Amalfi was wafted on the breeze that greeted her as she stood in her splendor, framed by the dark background of the noble bronze gates, looking on the people. The standard of Anjou floated its lilies to the air from every building, from every company of soldiers. The whole pageantry of pomp was unfolded in mighty Naples. Giovanna d’Anjou, crowned and beautiful, looked upon it, and the color flushed into her face.
She saw Maria, passive and vanquished; she saw the people acclaiming her almost against their will; she had risen over the clamor of factions. This was her perfect triumph: Queen of all Naples, Provence and Jerusalem.
The sun had almost reached the height of the Heavens, and Giovanna was moving down the cathedral steps to her palfrey, when a little, dusty man, who limped as he ran, forced through the crowd, and cursing all who would have questioned him, staggered, almost before any were aware of his incongruous presence, on to the sunlit steps before the Queen.
He said, through dry lips, that he had ridden until his horse dropped, from Foligno—he had a message from the lord commanding the garrison there.
He held out a parchment to the Queen; then, with a sound like choking, fell fainting at her feet.
“From Foligno!” murmured Giovanna. The nobles crowded about. She broke the seal and read:
Ludovic of Hungary is at Foligno and marching on Naples with thirty thousand men; Jerno has joined him and Aquila—he crosses the Volturno to-morrow at Benevento to fall upon the capital.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
THE EXECUTIONS IN THE PALAZZO SAN ELIGIO
They were playing ball in the gardens of the Castel del Nuovo; Giovanna would have it so. She walked up and down the paved path watching them. There were not many left at the court of Naples. Raymond de Cabane and Luigi of Taranto, with such Neapolitans as remained faithful, had departed for Capua to dispute the passage of the Volturno with the Hungarians, and all implicated in the murder of Andreas lay in prison, by virtue of a bull from the Pope, sent to Bertrand des Beaux, Chief Judge of the Kingdom of Naples.
Therefore there were not many playing, and these few had pale faces and shaking hands; yet, because of Giovanna, they tossed the silk ball to and fro and strove to laugh.
With her head hanging, and her hands clasped high on her bosom, the Queen passed through the light and shade. She thought of the unpaid mercenaries deserting by the hundreds, pillaging the Kingdom on their way to the Hungarian camp: the magistrates, the guilds, the common people clamoring for Ludovic of Hungary; her sister praying for the success of her enemies. She thought of her accomplices, whom she had delivered to Pope and people, and she crushed tighter a parchment under her hands.
It was the petition of the fifteen and their wives, their appeal to her to save them. She paused to watch the yellow ball fly across the blue and green and fall on the sward at Cleopatra di Perlucchi’s feet. The Conte Raymond’s sisters were among those to die to-day, to perish on the Palazzo San Eligio for the murder of Andreas of Hungary.
Save them? It was too late! To keep her Kingdom she had sacrificed her confederates. She, also, had demanded vengeance on her husband’s murderers to save her credit with the world. She had done everything. All her plate and personal property was pledged to the Lombards; she had sent messages to Sicily and Provence; she had written to the Pope and to Ludovic of Hungary—she recounted these things to herself feverishly—had she not done everything?
The light ball was tossed to and fro; the courtiers ran hither and thither; the Queen paced up and down.
Suddenly she stopped.
The bell of Santa Chiara had begun to toll.
Slowly she went back to the palace, and when she had gone they ceased throwing the ball, and the beautiful Cleopatra began to sob for those being now led forth to death.
In the hall the Queen found Bertrand des Beaux, Conte di Monte Scaglioso, with a somber retinue of mailed men.
“I am on my way to attend these executions,” he said. “Madonna, may I speak to ye?”
The tolling vibrated throughout the long hall. Giovanna crumpled the parchment in her hands.
“Speak,” she said.
They stepped apart from the others. He pointed to a chair, but she could not sit.
“I have little time,” he said. “I must soon be at the Palazzo San Eligio, but I could not get to the Palace before. Madonna, I stand for the Pope.”
She lifted her head dumbly. Her hand was keeping time to the tolling, by beating against the wall.
“Madonna,” said Bertrand des Beaux, “they might speak—have ye thought of that? Remember, they have been trusting in you to save them.”
“I cannot,” she answered wildly. “Ye of all men know I cannot.”
“It were wiser not to essay it, Madonna.” He lowered his voice. “Nicolo de Melaggo, the notary, has confessed everything—yet mentioned the name of no royal prince.”
“Ah!” He saw her throat quiver.
“It is not the desire of the Pope that any of the House of Anjou be implicated,” said des Beaux, “yet it is thought that some one of higher rank than any of these——”
“Stop!” The Queen spoke steadily. “Do ye suspect my cousins?”
He looked at her keenly.
“I have thought it well to silence the prisoners.”
A pause, filled with the somber tolling, then Giovanna whispered: “How?”
“By a slit tongue, Madonna, that they may not speak to-day. I have thrust a fish-hook——”
The color swept over the Queen’s face and neck.
“Keep these horrors from me!” she cried passionately.
He bent his head.
“I thought ye would care to know that none of them will ever speak again.”
She put out her hand to dismiss him, and with the other caught the arras on the wall; then, as he was turning away, she called him back.
Her wild and distraught demeanor, her half-stifled voice caused him to stare curiously.
“My lord, my lord, my good lord,” she said, “cannot ye save the women? God wot they are innocent——”
“The confession involved them, Madonna,” he half smiled.
“Guilia di Terliggi is only nineteen,” she answered desperately.
“Ye cannot save her.”
“Am I the Queen and have so little power?” exclaimed Giovanna. “Have ye forgot these ladies are the sisters of the Conte Raymond, my sister’s betrothed, my captain, fighting for me now at Capuna?”
“Madonna, the Conte, on his return to Naples, will have the matter of his own guilt to discuss.” He turned away, and the train of men went from the hall.
The Queen stood still a moment, listening to the tolling. So, they would never speak again. She was safe. There was only Raymond left—if she could have saved the women——
There were very few in the Palace. She crept up to her dreary bedroom and tried to find Sancia, but the tirewoman was not there. All the maids and ladies were scattered. Wearily she went to the window and set it open.
A great roar met her ears. The shout of many voices, such as had sounded when Raymond de Cabane had taken her hand and proclaimed her Queen from this very window—the yell now of the crowd greeting its prey as the prison doors swung back and the victims came forth to their death. Her brow grew damp with anguish; her fingers clutched the window frame. The roar of the crowd swelled in volume; her too quick brain pictured the ghastly procession, the yelling people, the immovable soldiers, the prisoners—she did not dare to think of the prisoners.
A long while she stood immovable, the sunshine and the breeze filling the chamber and caressing her haggard face. Then she threw herself along the floor and put her hands up to her throat and moaned bitterly. Sancia, creeping into the chamber, with her fingers over her ears to shut out the sound of the bells, crouched back in horror to see the rich red robe, the auburn hair, low on the ground.
The Queen looked up.
“I heard Guilia di Terliggi shriek,” she muttered. “I heard her shriek.”
Sancia began to flutter with sobs of terror. “God have mercy on us!” she wailed. “It is too far—ye could not hear——”
Giovanna gave a sudden wild smile.
“And her tongue is pierced,” she said hollowly. “So they cannot speak—so I fancied it.” She clasped her hands round her knees and sat so, huddled up, and her lips moved as if she counted the tolling of the bells of Santa Chiara.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
THE QUEEN’S LAST STAKE
Giovanna stared at her answer from Ludovic of Hungary.
She broke the seal, bearing his arms, and unfolded the parchment.
A strange sensation came over her. The brother of Andreas, what manner of man was he, her conqueror?
There were only a few lines, all in the same hand:
The exclusive power you arrogated to yourself in the Kingdom, the insolence with which you treated the King, the favor which you have shown to his murderers, even to the extent of promising your sister, our betrothed bride, to the most guilty, and your excuse itself, are sufficient proofs of your having been an accomplice in your husband’s death. Convince us of your innocence and we will cease to harass your Kingdom; if you cannot do that, prepare to receive the full extent of our vengeance.
The letter fluttered from the Queen’s hand to the ground. She fell back in her chair, and her head sank on her bosom; her spirit fainted within her. She made a movement with her hands as if she laid down the sword and crown in sheer weariness. She could fight no more, she had done everything, ruined herself to her very rings, given up her friends, sided with the people, conceded to the magistrates, delivered herself into the hands of the Lombard money lenders, humbled herself to Provence, appealed to her enemy, and he, this man at her gates with an ever growing army, he, with the support of Italy and her own people, was going to brand her as a murderess.
There was nothing to be done. She had made a splendid stand against sudden disaster, but in vain, there was nothing to be done.
With the resolution that was natural to her, she decided to fly at once to Provence and to save her life if she could not her crown. She had not any hope in Raymond de Cabane being able to arrest the progress of the Hungarians, nor any faith in her people’s protection.
She sat quiet, revolving the scheme in abject weariness of soul. Maria d’Anjou entered the room, and Giovanna, like a bruised snake whose sting is dead, eyed her dully and made no movement.
There was an extraordinary air of elation and triumph about Maria. She stepped lightly and the color was ever flushing up into her face. With blue eyes alight with hope, she glanced at her sister.
“Why do you look so gay?” questioned the Queen in a passionless voice.
“Gay?—do I look gay?” answered Maria. “My heart is eased because my lord of Hungary comes.”
She stood, leaning against the carved mantel shelf, her gorgeous head upheld. The sunlight lay softly upon the folds of her pale yellow dress.
“You are very glad of my downfall,” said Giovanna.
Maria lifted the chestnut curls from her brow and looked at the Queen.
“What have you ever been to me that I should weep? Yes, I am glad.” Her face was wildly triumphant, her calm eyes scornful under her level brows. “I always turned from you, Giovanna,” she said.
The Queen raised her head and sank her chin in her hand.
“As for your ally, Raymond,” said Maria sternly, “I would not give one thought to him nor turn my head to save him, but you are of royal blood and I would have you fly the vengeance that marches on Naples.”
“Ah—you would have me fly?” answered Giovanna with narrowed eyes. Her own resolution sounded a different matter on another’s lips. She did not say that she had decided to hurry to Provence.
“All the bloody executions that made the city hideous yesterday will not save you,” said Maria. “This lord comes for vengeance.”
Giovanna raised her eyes.
“And you?”
“I am his promised wife,” answered her sister proudly. “I shall stay to welcome him.”
The Queen made a little movement in her chair. “Ah, you sent for him,” she said quietly. “You wrote to the Pope.”
“Yes,” said Maria.
Giovanna’s eyes shifted from side to side with a cunning light in them.
“Let us be at a plain understanding—you advise me to flee from this brother of Andreas?”
“The conqueror of your Kingdom,” amended Maria.
The Queen sat upright.
“Do you believe I am guilty of my husband’s death?” she asked quickly.
Her sister did not answer.
“Do you believe so?” repeated the Queen.
“I know it,” said Maria hoarsely.
A deeper pallor overspread Giovanna’s drawn features.
“You do not know it and you cannot prove it,” she said under her breath. “And it is false.”
“You must persuade the King of Hungary of that,” flashed Maria. “And you cannot—therefore as your wretched life is dear to you, leave Naples before the day be out—go to Sicily—to Provence—but do not stay here to await the coming of Ludovic of Hungary——”
“You come to tell me this?”
“For the sake of our kinship I come to tell you this.”
“Very well,” said the Queen with compressed lips. “You may go.”
Maria turned from the chamber in silence. As the door shut Giovanna’s hands clutched the chair arms and her eyes unclosed.
All the spirit that had been dead in her at Maria’s entrance was roused now, in arms.
Should she vacate her throne that her sister might step into it—should all her strivings end in this—that Maria, as Ludovic’s wife, should succeed to her crown—was she a thing so easily overawed that they could frighten her from her Kingdom? Maria’s triumph, Maria’s joy at deliverance, Maria’s pride in her victorious lord had been as so many lashes to drive her from her resolution of quitting Naples.
Even if the army and the people had forsaken her, even if she had neither money nor men, she had herself; her own kingly courage, her own strong ambition, her own crafty policy, her own beauty and youth.
She picked up Ludovic’s letter from the floor:
“If you can prove your innocence.”
If! Her blood surged hotly to her heart. If she could make the man believe in her, even now her enemy might be turned into her champion; she might preserve not her life alone, but her fame and her Kingdom. And who was Ludovic of Hungary that he should not believe in her. He was a man and young, she was a woman and beautiful, she had all the Southern guile. He would show himself a boor and a simpleton as all his countrymen.
Ah, she would not abandon everything until she had staked all once more. She had nothing to lose but her life, and she would rather risk that like a prodigal in an attempt to gain her old glories, than hoard it like a miser in misery.
She called Sancia and sent her in search of Carlo, almost the only person of rank remaining in the Palace. While she waited for him a message came to her from Bertrand des Beaux, who informed her that Luigi of Taranto had been defeated by the Hungarians at Capua, and that the victorious army was marching on Aversa and Capua; he added that the magistrates and guilds had decided to open the gates of Naples to Ludovic, and repeated Maria’s counsel of flight from the Kingdom.
Giovanna was hardly moved. It was what she had expected; it only confirmed her in her resolution. She waited with impatience for Carlo di Durazzo. He came at last. He had seen Guilia di Terliggi hanged yesterday, and in consequence was gloomy. He had wavered for days past between the Queen and Ludovic, as she well knew, but she needed him now.
“Carlo,” she said kindly. “Carlo—why have you not been to see me?”
He seated himself listlessly against the wall and began playing with the tassels on his boot. “I went to see the executions yesterday,” he answered. “And it made me sick.”
The Queen’s face darkened.
“Do not talk to me of that, cousin.”
He raised a fretful, pale face. “What do you wish to talk of, Madonna?”
Her slender fingers folded up the two letters on the knees of her gray gown. With intent eyes she studied the Duke’s face.
“Carlo—I am going to have one more throw with fortune, and I shall need your help.”
He gave a bitter little laugh.
“I am a ruined man——”
She interrupted. “I am not asking for gold or men—that is hopeless——”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“What else will be of any use?”
“My wits, perchance,” her violet eyes flashed one quick glance at him. “Cousin, I am going to Ludovic of Hungary’s camp to see him—I desire that you come with me.”
“Sweet saints!” The Duke lifted his eyebrows languidly.
“Carlo,” she pursued eagerly. “Do not argue with me or say I have lost my wits—it is the sole thing for me—let me but convince that man,” she broke off sharply, “it shall not involve you, cousin—the King is near Aversa,” she spoke the word without a shudder—“I will travel to-morrow morning and be back ere nightfall.”
“If he allow you to return at all,” answered Durazzo dryly.
“I am chancing that,” she breathed. “It is all or nothing. If he should refuse to believe me, to end that way would be better than exile in some Provence chateau with a blasted name.”
Her fingers moved nervously and her eyes flashed recklessly. Carlo di Durazzo, weak and careless, but no fool, saw well enough her motive in this desperate move. It was clear to him that in putting herself at Ludovic’s mercy, she disarmed him to a great extent; that if anything could convince him of her innocence, she herself, coming alone to him with violet eyes, soft voice, and red mouth for her advocates, would do it. And as the Duke believed in his heart she was guiltless, he could conceive that she might persuade Ludovic. Then, too, it was an adventure with a hint of knight errantry in it and danger that made a fine distraction to his thoughts of Guilia di Terliggi; it was flattering also that she trusted him.
As he considered these things the Queen watched him with burning eyes; her lips trembled and her hands were locked tightly together.
“Well,” he said at last, “it is a desperate strait and a desperate expedient—but I will go with you, Madonna.”
She rose and laid her hand on his arm. Her glance was eloquent of gratitude. Then she turned in silence to the window. All the tangled glories of her race, standards of victory, wreaths of a conqueror, the trumpets of renown, the heralds of splendor and high greatness, seemed gathered into her slight figure and her royal eyes, the disasters, the triumphs, the magnificence of a line of kings were embodied in her still resolve.
“Desperate,” she said softly, as if she had been thinking over her cousin’s last words. “Well, I think courage shows best in desperate straits—’tis better bravery to go to this King even on a poor chance than to wait here trembling before the inevitable.”