The bare, white road wound through dusty vineyards where the grapes hung heavy in their leaves, then sloped suddenly into the chestnut woods leading to Capua.
Queen Giovanna, in a dull red dress, a dark purple scarf about her head, rode a little white mule. Carlo di Durazzo, in the plain habit of a traveler, was singing and caressing the neck of his brown horse.
They had escaped from Naples without even Maria suspecting. The Queen was supposed to be sick and in her chamber, the Duke with the Army.
Carlo, breaking off his song to speak of this, remarked that if it were discovered that Giovanna had fled the city, the Government would fall finally into the hands of the people.
“If that happen,” said the Queen, “I look to the man who has dethroned me to rethrone me. Let me persuade Ludovic and I am safe.”
“And if not?” asked the Duke idly.
“There is death,” answered Giovanna. “Cousin, mark how confident I am—I say that word calmly—yet I am very afraid of death.” Her voice fell, she gave him a strange look. “He is always running behind me—just a step behind—one day he will quicken his pace and overtake me—or else I stand still and wait for him.”
“ ’Tis so with all,” said Durazzo, and fell into gloom thinking of Guilia di Terliggi.
They rode out on to bare turf, then again into groves of beech and pine. The fresh air had given Giovanna a fairer color than paint had ever done. Her hair hanging loose and soft like a peasant girl’s added to her youth; the purple and red of her gown combined the color of the chestnuts and of the rich earth; her violet eyes, regal, wonderful, gave her both beauty and majesty. Carlo di Durazzo thought her lovely, and felt great confidence in her success as he glanced aside at her. Then when she turned to him and he caught a full view of her face, he thought her not lovely—strange rather, a little repellant. He told himself that her mouth was too red and hard, her brows overarched, and in the lines of the fine nostrils he saw cruelty; the turn of her chin and throat was perfect, yet graceful as was her carriage, she was over slender and stooped a little as she rode.
Standing and considering her, Carlo di Durazzo thought with a curious pang of Maria, and realized suddenly how infinitely more beautiful she was, how noble and gracious in line and color; but Maria was a saint, and such were not for the wooing of the Duke di Duras.
They came to an inn where some peasants drank wine out of tall glasses under an arbor covered with dusty creepers.
Giovanna insisted on halting. She dismounted and, with the eyes of the peasants on her, went up to the door of the low white house and called the landlord, who came and opened the gate of the little garden.
They entered among old rose bushes, bearing small pink flowers and carnations in their gray foliage. It was all shaded with a trellis covered with a vine, and under the oleander bushes tables and benches were set.
The sun to-day, faint behind vapors, fell in light beams through the leaves. One or two laborers from the vineyards and the harvest sat about drinking the red wine.
They all stared at Giovanna’s white arms as she rested them on the stained table, at the embroidered shoe beneath her quiet gown, at her vivid eyes and bright, rippling hair; then their curiosity turned on Carlo, whose peach-bloom complexion, careful amber curls and soft features, were at variance with his rough dress.
The Queen challenged their glances by her pose and absolute ignoring of them, the Duke by flushing and lowering his brown eyes disdainfully.
“Why did we come here?” he asked under his breath, “what if any should know you?”
“No one will know me,” said Giovanna, “and it is very pleasant.”
Wine in deep, graceful glasses, coarse bread, and fruit were brought. Giovanna questioned the girl who served them concerning the Hungarian army that lay near Aversa. For days past, they were told, men had stopped here, in twos and threes, on their way from Naples to the army of the invader.
“Ah, yes,” said the Queen, sipping her wine. “We do the same—have you seen anything of the Hungarians?”
They had, was the answer, taken provisions from every village and farm near about, but they had paid, and there had been no murdering, no pillaging.
Giovanna’s fine brows went up ever so slightly, her restless fingers crumbled the bread on the rough table.
“Have you seen the King?” she asked quietly. Carlo made a restless movement, fearing she was growing indiscreet.
“Oh, yes,” said the girl. She had gone with her brothers to take fruit to the camp. She had seen the King.
“What was he doing?” said Giovanna.
“He was laughing. There was a monkey in the camp, and the King had tied a red ribbon to its tail, and as it ran round after it, the King laughed loudly.” He was a very handsome man, she added, and on that left them, being called to one of the other tables.
The Queen looked at Durazzo.
“Laughing!” she said. It shattered all her conceptions of Ludovic that he should laugh when on such an errand, or amuse himself in fooleries when engaged in warfare.
“It will make him no easier to move,” said Carlo.
Giovanna turned narrowed eyes on him. “Cousin, do you yourself suspect me that you have so little faith?”
“I would not be with you if I did,” he answered.
They rose. Giovanna, walking slowly down the garden, picked a scarlet and a pink carnation and fastened them in her dress—laughing!—and handsome. Had she known sooner she might have arrayed herself in a gayer dress. Perhaps he had not wept much for Andreas, perhaps ambition, not vengeance, had inspired this descent on Italy. She did not remember ever hearing Andreas laugh.
Carlo paid and overpaid, at which there was much staring and comment, while he, red and angry, helped Giovanna to remount.
She was too absorbed in her own thoughts to heed, but Carlo was ruffled.
“How was I to know what they charged for their vile wine?” he said. “I do not care for these foolish masquerades.”
He pulled his hat over his eyes and lapsed into silence. The long, white road was dipping toward the towers of Aversa when they were overtaken by a Veronese soldier riding to the camp.
He was loquacious and discoursed at length on the battle at Benevento, where the Queen’s cousin, Luigi of Taranto, had been wounded, he said, and all the flower of the Neapolitan army slain. He told them how the Pope’s legate, who was at Foligno, had essayed to stop the Hungarians in their march, but Ludovic had said: “When I am master of Naples, I will obey the Pope; until then I will answer for my actions to God alone.”
The Veronese was one, he said, of a body of three hundred presented to Ludovic by Verona in token of their sympathy. Every town in Italy the Hungarians had passed through had opened their gates to them.
“Why is he so beloved?” sneered Carlo.
The Veronese laughed. It was not the King who was beloved, but the Queen who was hated.
Here Giovanna, who had listened in silence, spoke:
“Messer, we ride to the Hungarian camp also—will you tell me how I may speak with the King?”
Carlo frowned at so much imprudence, but the soldier did not appear astonished.
“The King, Madonna, is at a little farmhouse outside Aversa—Mars!—I do not know if he will see anyone.”
“I come from Naples,” said the Queen earnestly, “and I have matters relating to the surrender of the city to talk of to him.”
They had turned through a belt of chestnuts, and the gay tents of the Hungarians showed, scattered before the distant walls of Aversa. The Queen’s eyes lifted covertly to where, on her right, the convent of Santo-Pietro-a-Majello rose against the horizon. Through these woods had he hunted that day when his evil star sent him alone to that convent. Through these woods had she ridden back to Naples to the brief triumph of her short reign. Through these woods had he been brought home again—she checked herself, it was not good to think of these things.
They rode forward unmolested until they came to the outposts. Here, though the woman’s presence was questioned, upon their representation that they were of the Neapolitan nobility and desirous of joining the King, they were allowed to pass.
Their friendly Veronese saw them through the army to the farmhouse where Ludovic lodged, and fetched one of the Hungarian captains, who, after half an hour’s wearisome talk in bad Italian, consented to ask the King if he would see the lady from Naples. Giovanna and Carlo had dismounted. They were suffered to rest while waiting upon a bench in the orchard. The Queen looked at the humble white house, the royal standard blowing above it, and the dark cypresses casting a heavy shade over it. She looked at the Hungarian sentries moving in and out of the trees and the distant tents of the great army.
From a dove-cote near a soft cooing came on the breeze with the scent of the citron and lemon. A heavy fig tree grew close and Giovanna noted curiously the shape and color of the fruit against the veiled blue sky.
An extraordinary sensation befell her. She felt that this was an interval of reason in some madness, that she had been insane and would be insane again. She remembered quite clearly terrible efforts to control herself that no one might know she was mad; she remembered horrible phantoms of the night that she had struggled with and subdued, the question and terror in Sancia’s eyes; she remembered how many times she had gone on her knees in the early dawn and rubbed her chamber floor, how many times she had rolled her sheets together. She looked furtively at Carlo—did he know she had been mad?
No, he was lazily pulling at the figs, his round features were indifferent, the wind ruffled the little yellow curls in the nape of his brown neck. He did not know—no one knew—she would be very careful they never did. Mad—surely only madness could have inspired her now—surely only madness could convince Andreas’s avenger. But she was sane. She told herself that, she was controlled and calm, sane.
Carlo, eating figs, looked at her, and was surprised at the expression of her eyes.
“Ah, you are frightened?” he said.
Her face changed.
“No,” she answered. “I try to forget what this means.” She smiled and remarked how surprised Ludovic would be to see her, his cousin, after all.
“I will wait for you here,” said Carlo. “It is quite pleasant and the figs are very good.” He surveyed her critically. “Why did you put on red? I do not care for you in red.”
Her eyes grew vacant. She made no reply. The flames in the Palazzo San Eligio were of that color—the fourteen and their women, burning—in Hell now, while she…
The Hungarian captain returned; the King would see the lady.
She rose swiftly, flung back the curls from her forehead, and straightened the carnations at her bosom. Smiling back at Carlo she followed the captain. At the open door of the farmhouse he left her and she stepped in. A soldier on guard moved aside for her, a squire conducted her down the dark passage and flung open a door.
She found herself in a low-beamed room, opening by a large window on to the orchard.
Bunches of herbs and strings of onions hung against the walls; bright-colored articles of pottery stood in the corners and on shelves; a curved bench was under the window and a large dark chest stood opposite, covered with bottles and glasses. A lean gray cat was cleaning itself in the center of the bare floor.
Giovanna noticed these things with that curious shock unusual surroundings give. All her fears, her dreads, her resolutions confined thus to the common room of a farmhouse!
She stood within the door, a sick mist before her eyes. It was a second before she saw a tall young man standing by the window observing her.
She was as speechless as if a giant’s hand gripped her words in her throat. Kingdoms, life and death, her wild ambitions, her regal courage, the tossing to and fro of crowns had come to this: that she stood now within the door of a mean room, trembling and silent before a stranger. Her eyes were very busy with him. He was so utterly different to Andreas that it was difficult to believe he was his brother. He carried himself very proudly and looked at her slightly smiling, with no attempt to speak.
She put her hand on the latch of the door to steady herself and forced words:
“Are you Ludovic of Hungary?”
His smile slightly deepened. “Yes.”
It was the softest voice she had ever heard. It confused her. Almost unconsciously she had imagined that he would speak in loud ringing tones like his brother.
“I have ridden from Naples to-day,” said Giovanna faintly, speaking to gain time. “It was imperative I should see you—and at once.”
What manner of man was he? All she had ever heard of him rushed upon her. While she spoke she was considering him eagerly.
He wore chain armor, over it a little surtout in striped crimson and gold. He was bareheaded, his bright black hair waved in close curls, his brows were very straight, rather heavy, of a saintly sweep, his eyes of that hazel that interchanged blue and green. Eastern eyes, bright and languorous. His face browned and flushed in the cheeks; his chin magnificent, imperious, and underset; his mouth, though controlled to gravity, rebellious and inclined to assume an expression anything but saintly.
In an instant Giovanna saw that she had no abstract qualities to deal with, now he was obviously controlling himself to an unusual quiet.
“You are surprised,” she said, under her breath, “you wonder what I have come for—you do not guess who I am—what I am?”
“Why, I know that you are a lady of Naples,” he answered in that voice that was soft as a caress and a contrast to his daring eyes. “What you are here for, how can I guess?”
A great shudder shook her. She came into the center of the room. The sunlight from the window on her red and violet dress, on the two vivid carnations, and her auburn hair rippling either side of her white face. She went on her knees on the bare floor, and her purple eyes lifted to his.
“I am the Queen of Naples,” she said wildly.
She saw the hot color flood his face.
“I thought so,” he said.
She was wretchedly silent; her head fell forward. Were he to strike her as she knelt into instant death, she would have made neither complaint nor resistance.
“I saw you through the window,” continued Ludovic. “I knew you then—” She heard the soft chink of his armor as he stepped toward her. “This is a strange thing for you to have done.”
“It was your letter,” answered Giovanna faintly. “I took this resolution to see you face to face——”
“Wherefore?” demanded Ludovic curiously. “What can you have to say to me?”
She rose from her knees and faced him. “Do you think that I have no answer to what you wrote?”
“By Heaven! I wonder!” he answered. His eyes flashed over her; he folded his arms on the back of the high chair in a careless attitude, and a little smile took the corner of his mouth.
Giovanna felt resolution and wrath envelop her like a flame rising from the soles of her feet to her brain. “Ah, you wonder,” she said, speaking quickly. “You, who have judged without seeing, condemned without hearing.” She put the hair back from her face. “Come, look at me,” she said passionately. “Am I as you imagined me? Do you think I murdered your brother?”
Ludovic gazed at her intently.
“I think you must prove your innocence of it,” he answered strongly. “I have not taken this upon me lightly—I shall not lightly put it down. I have come for vengeance on that murdered blood of mine. I am not a man easily moved.”
The fierce color flushed into Giovanna’s cheeks; her breast heaved painfully.
“Do not think I come to win my life from you. I am in your power, and you may kill me if you will—oh, I am well used to injustice in the judgment seat—my life has not been set in pleasant places—” She broke off. “What do you know of me? What have you heard of me that you dare to flout my name through Christendom coupled with murderess?”
“Ask your heart,” he answered softly, never taking his eyes from her strange face. “Question of your soul what happened in the convent of Santo-Pietro-a-Majello.”
She did not wince or falter; she put her hand on her bosom. “I can prove nothing,” she said in an exalted voice. “But before that high Heaven that is my witness I am innocent.”
There was a little silence, during which they looked at each other; then he said:
“If that is false, you lie very splendidly—and yet I think it is a lie.”
“It is the truth,” she answered proudly. “May God strike me where I stand if I knew anything of my husband’s death—if I knew even that he had been slain until he had been hours dead.”
“God does not deal in such swift judgments,” said Ludovic of Hungary, “leaving them to men. You do not reckon now with God, but with me, who stand for Him, in this matter.”
“I have nothing but my word to give,” she said, “and I can swear no deeper——”
“A little proof were worth many oaths,” he answered.
“I have none.”
“And yet you have come here to convince me?” He smiled cruelly, but she did not lower her wild eyes.
“That,” she said, “is as may be—I have come to tell you that your cause is not justice, but tyranny. You have come like a thunderbolt upon me; you have laid my kingdom prone beneath your arms and set your heel upon my inheritance—you have ruined me. I stand here stripped and bare. I think I have no ally, but what justice there may be in your heart. You are my conqueror and my judge, and I appeal to you to hear me, to believe me—I am innocent.”
As she spoke, his handsome face paled, and he lowered his eyes.
“You think I have come, not for vengeance for my Andreas, but for lust of ambition?” he said steadily. “That is not so. Prove your innocence of any hint of complicity in his death, and I will reinstate you.”
“I have no proof,” she repeated. “Prove you my guilt.”
His eyes lifted quickly.
“By Heaven! would it be so difficult? What of the terms you were on with Andreas?”
Steadily she answered, her white face unmoved: “They forced us together. I never loved him. I was the puppet of one faction—he of another—that is all.”
“What of his avowed murderers rewarded, unpunished?”
A spasm of horror crossed her face. “They were executed two days ago,” she said hollowly.
“It was a late justice,” answered Ludovic sternly.
“It was as soon as I dared administer it,” she whispered. “You forget I am a woman. I was the puppet of these men. I shivered for my own life——”
The King interrupted her broken words.
“The most guilty still goes free—Raymond de Cabane.”
“I loathe him,” she cried quickly, “but he has been my master—what could I do?”
His hazel eyes darkened.
“You made him Duke of Calabria—the title of the heir to the throne. You insulted me by betrothing to him the bride I waited for—my God! of what service was that the reward? Why should you unite your blood with that of a slave?”
“Because I was forced—because they obeyed him, not me—oh!” Sudden agony inspired her words. “Would men like that have taken a woman into their confidence? Poor wretch! what was I to them but a figure that could wear a crown? I went to sleep that night, suspecting nothing, and when I awoke it was over—and he——”
“Do not speak of it,” said Ludovic sharply. “I—oh—I cannot talk of it.”
He moved away across the room, and Giovanna, feeling her limbs cold and heavy, crept to the wide window seat and sat there. She looked out at the sloping orchard, at the indifferent Carlo, still on the bench under the fig trees, fighting a wasp that buzzed round the fruit; at the black cypresses and the white doves flying across the blue. Then she turned her gaze on Ludovic, walking slowly up and down the bare flags.
He was regal, superb; a King indeed. She looked at him sideways out of narrowed eyes, and her sharp, white teeth bit her full under lip. She noted his shapely brown hands, his black hair sweeping up out of his graceful neck; his beautiful, curved mouth, his low brow, on which the curls fell heavily.
He came at last to the window and looked down upon her, frowning.
“Well, what else?” he said. “What else?”
She had fallen from her vehemence into quiet.
“I am innocent,” she answered. “That is all.”
“Cousin,” he said strangely. She quivered to hear him use the word. He turned his head away, then moved into the room. “Cousin,” he repeated.
She sat quite still.
He came back. “Believe me that I would think so,” he said, “that you are innocent—” He was silent a second.
“I am in your hands,” whispered Giovanna.
Suddenly he caught her by the shoulders and lifted her to her feet.
“Could a woman do such a murder?” he asked hoarsely. “Could a woman take such perjuries upon her?”
She shrank together, yet looked up at him. “No, no!” she said.
He took his hands from her. She fell back against the woodwork of the window.
“What made you think I was guilty?” she gasped, but curiously. “Did Maria——”
“No,” he answered quickly, “Maria wrote to me—she never mentioned you—she asked me to come and take vengeance.”
“But not on me!” cried Giovanna. She held out her fine little hand. “Was that ever stained with his blood? I am very young. I did not do this thing. Before Heaven, I wept for him!”
Her great eyes were full of tears now, but she suddenly laughed.
“Yet you may kill me as you have killed my fame, and none will blame you.”
His dark face flushed.
“Why, do you not know that if I thought you had any hand in his death, I would have you hanged as he was hanged—over the balcony at Aversa?”
Giovanna drew a trembling breath. “I think you would. I think you came for that, or to drag me on trial before the Pope at Avignon—but I also think that you will do neither of these things.”
“Why?” asked Ludovic.
“Why? Why have I come here defenceless? Why have I appealed to your knighthood to do me justice? Because I am innocent.”
He was looking at her steadily, with a passionate expression on his face, that was half pain, half doubt.
“Will you give to me Raymond de Cabane?” he said slowly. “If you loathe his crime—if you were not his accomplice—will you give him up to my justice?”
Again that feeling that she looked back into a long insanity came over Giovanna. Raymond she had always disliked, but he had served her well: for his own ends, perhaps, but he had served her well. It was he who had seized her husband’s yellow hair in blood-stained fingers that night. Her thoughts flew wide, but her eyes were blank as colored glass.
“I will!” she said.
“Surely”—Ludovic drew a quick breath—“surely if you had set him on you could not betray him now—that were too vile.”
“I will send him to you if I have the power,” said Giovanna steadily.
“There are no others?” asked the King.
“No,” she answered, and that fear leaped to her eyes that always came there when she thought of the executions in the Palazzo San Eligio.
“Will you give me your sister?”
“Yes.” She spoke without hesitating, with steady voice and clear eyes.
“I will come to Naples,” said Ludovic. “I will come in peace and treat with you, for I believe what you have said, my cousin.”
She showed neither triumph nor wonder. She turned to him her strange, grave face and unfathomable eyes.
“Thank you, cousin,” she said. She held out her hands. He took them and clasped them lightly. She trembled, and a faint rose-color sprang to her cheeks.
“You will come to Naples?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he smiled. “You see, I do not come for lust of ambition, for I will call a peace in the midst of victory.”
“You shall have your vengeance,” said Giovanna. “I will send you Raymond de Cabane.”
His fingers tightened over hers.
“No—let des Beaux arrest him—let him await my coming.” He frowned. “It is not your vengeance.”
She drew a little closer. “I must go back,” she said, looking up at him. “They must not miss me.” She pulled her hands away. “You will come to Naples?” she repeated.
The breeze from the window fluttered her auburn ringlets on to his mailed arm and stirred the heavy hair on his forehead.
“You think you have persuaded me very easily,” he said. “Do you not, little cousin?”
“Persuaded you?” she repeated. “Did you ever—in your soul—think I had a hand in your brother’s death?”
His superb eyes flashed to hers. “No,” he said abruptly, “no.”
She took the two carnations from her bosom and gave them to him.
“My cousin Carlo is without—do not leave the house with me—no one knows me here.” Her voice suddenly failed her. “In Naples—in Naples,” and she hurried to the door.
Ludovic looked at her carnations in his hand, vivid pink, vivid scarlet.
“In Naples, in three days’ time,” he said softly.
She lifted the homely latch and went out.
“So she persuaded him?” said des Beaux.
“In half an hour,” answered Carlo di Durazzo. “It is well for Naples—better Hungary as a friend than as a conqueror.”
They stood on the balcony of the Castel del Nuovo looking toward Sorrento.
“He actually comes, then, in friendly fashion?” questioned des Beaux.
“He will enter into an alliance with the Queen—he will marry Maria,” Carlo sighed.
“He might have come, God wot, as a conqueror,” returned the other. “The guilds would have opened to him—and, after all, he is the true heir. It was a daring move,” he added.
“On the Queen’s part—yes. She has a wonderful courage.”
“And Raymond de Cabane?”
“He is to be sent a prisoner to this King.”
“The wiser thing—it will mollify Hungary.”
“And prove the innocence of the Queen,” said Carlo.
“How?”
“Why, Mars! he must know. And if she deliver him up, what reason has he to keep silent. It is a proof she is not afraid of him——”
They heard a footstep in the room behind them, and entered it from the balcony.
A splendid, red-haired knight in black armor, burnished with gold, and wrapped in a scarlet cloak, was crossing the chamber.
“The Prince of Taranto!” cried des Beaux. Carlo greeted him gayly. Yesterday’s success had put him in a good humor with the world.
But Luigi of Taranto looked sick and gloomy. “I return a defeated man,” he said heavily. “Ye have heard how all was lost at Benevento?”
Before they could answer, the door that led to the Queen’s apartments opened, and Giovanna showed herself. She smiled on all of them; there was a color in her cheeks, a light in her eyes; her hair slipped in a great coil into her white neck; she wore a rose-pink gown, laced over the bosom with gold.
Luigi of Taranto turned pale with rage and shame at the tale he carried. “I should not be here alive, Madonna——”
“Ah, the affair at Benevento,” she said, still smiling. “Has not Carlo told you?” She went up to the warrior and laid her hand on his arm. “Ludovic of Hungary enters Naples in two days’ time as my cousin and my friend.”
“Now, who has done this miracle?” cried the Prince of Taranto.
Prudence and containment gave way to triumph. Giovanna unclosed her shining eyes and laughed under her breath.
“In half an hour I persuaded him. He comes to treat with me as a King with a reigning Princess.”
“Persuaded him?” asked the Prince, “of what?”
Quietly she answered him, her fingers playing with the tassels of her bodice:
“You know my cousin—he suspected me—as the world has suspected me—of complicity in the King’s death.”
She flashed one quick glance at Luigi of Taranto’s eager face, then her heavy white lids drooped again. “I convinced him of my innocence,” she said. “And I think there is no one will dare raise a voice against me since he is satisfied.”
The Prince of Taranto’s eyes flashed with a strange expression.
Giovanna laughed, and gave him her hand.
“You were always my very good champion, yet your sword”—her eyes were cruel—“has failed, while my wit has saved Naples.” She drew her hand away, and he flushed. “Where is Conte Raymond?” she asked.
“He follows me, Madonna.”
She looked round upon the three men and her teeth pressed her lip. “If you were in my place, gentlemen,” she asked quietly, “what would be your manner of dealing with Raymond de Cabane?”
Bertrand des Beaux considered her with grave eyes.
“You know, Madonna, what has kept me from dealing with him as with his accomplices—his position—your favor. If he forfeit these—well!”
The Queen lifted her hand in protest.
“My favor!” she said in a thick voice. “A thing forced from me. Prince, what do you say?”
Luigi of Taranto answered earnestly:
“We only stain ourselves by sheltering a murderer. It would have been better for our honor had he suffered with the others.”
Giovanna looked at Carlo.
The smooth, golden, rose-tinted face flushed. He answered with a fierceness rare in his indifferent demeanor:
“I think enough blood has been shed for that boy’s death—straightly, cousin, are you meaning to deliver Raymond de Cabane to the King as a peace offering?”
Giovanna’s eyes showed him hate for the turn of his speech; her teeth were again set in her lip; the thin skin broke, the blood staining them. “I am asking your advice,” she said, in a low, restrained voice. “The King of Hungary has demanded this man. His guilt is a thing obvious and blazoned——”
A deep pause fell, then Carlo’s light laugh rose. “What I said, Giovanna! Buy your own safety with what you can—why not?”
“The safety of Naples,” said the Queen, shaking. “Remember, the King is to marry my sister—had I not to promise it? Raymond will not renounce her quietly.”
Bertrand des Beaux spoke.
“He must go—it is bare justice.”
“An’ the way of it be not treacherous,” said Luigi of Taranto. “I will put in no word to save Raymond de Cabane from punishment.”
Giovanna dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief and moistened her lips. Carlo shrugged his shoulders. It was in his mind that the Queen had been served and trusted by this man she was scheming to deliver to his death. That he had fought for her loyally, whatever his sins, it was not for her to judge and punish.
But Bertrand des Beaux admired her for a stroke of policy equal to her cunning in placing herself at the head of the popular fury that demanded the warrant for the death of the fifteen. His crafty Italian face expressed a sardonic approbation and understanding of her motive. In his heart he believed her guilty of at least pre-knowledge of her husband’s death.
“The Conte Raymond—in common prudence—must be sacrificed,” he said suavely.
Luigi of Taranto was not moved to speak for de Cabane, yet shamefacedness touched him a little as he considered the action they proposed.
“He is still powerful,” he said slowly. “Are we strong enough to arrest him?”
Giovanna had been thinking all night over this question, fresh to them. She was nervously wrought up to face it, armed with replies to all difficulties.
“It must be done secretly,” she answered quickly.
Des Beaux studied his lean hands; he understood. Carlo, at the window, kept his eyes on the three of them.
“Ye would not send him alive to the King of Hungary?” asked des Beaux.
“No,” said Giovanna.
Luigi of Taranto glanced at her.
“Why not, Madonna?”
Des Beaux, for her, answered easily: “It would be a foolish thing, since—he might speak—” and the Conte also glanced at the Queen.
“He might lie,” amended Giovanna, with a steady expression on her white face. “He might defame us all.”
Carlo came toward them, his hands thrust through his girdle, his usual lazy indolence in face and manner.
“I see Raymond de Cabane below—riding into the courtyard,” he said carelessly.
Luigi of Taranto sprang up.
“Have we any we can trust?” cried the Queen, and sat down by the table and rose up again, with fierce eyes, all in a breath.
“To do the deed, mean you?” asked Bertrand des Beaux.
“I cannot be the executioner of a man who has fought beside me,” cried the Prince.
Carlo di Durazzo laughed.
“Are you afraid of him? Fling him into the dungeons as you flung the others—burn him in the public square.”
Des Beaux moistened his lips.
“We have neither the force now nor the authority.”
“So it must be murder?” said Carlo lightly.
Giovanna glanced at him in a baited fashion. “Are you all meaning to forsake me?” she whispered. “This man must die—for the sake of Naples.” She sat down again and curled her fingers together on the table; her violet eyes shifted from one to another. “He will be coming up,” she said.
Luigi of Taranto spoke, goaded by her appeal.
“The Provence soldiery I brought back with me—they are trustworthy. They would——”
She caught at it.
“Bring them up,” she commanded eagerly. “Wait a little.” She put her hand to her head. “I will see him—send him to me.” She broke off again—“wait without upon the stairs. If I call for you——”
Des Beaux answered her broken words suavely.
“I shall be there—with the soldiers, Madonna.”
“I also,” said the Prince of Taranto grimly.
“And you, Carlo?” questioned the Queen.
“Oh, I must see my falcons fed,” he answered, with an indifferent glance. “Ye do not require my services.”
She motioned them all away.
“Send him to me,” she muttered.
After they had left her she sat with her elbows on the table and her head in her hands, facing what was before her. Ever since she had promised Raymond de Cabane to Ludovic of Hungary, she had been scheming how to accomplish it, for her triumphant success of yesterday would be marred if this man lived.
For he knew.
She might put what front she would on it, he knew. She might outlie him; her word might even persuade Ludovic against Raymond’s, but it was a risk. She was safe save for him—but he was there and he knew everything. He would speak, too. There was only the one means to keep him silent—death.
Her temples were throbbing feverishly; her lips and throat dry. It had cost her a tremendous effort to come to this resolution, to hold it, carry it through without flinching. She wanted no more blood; horror and distaste were dragging her back, fear urging her forward.
Raymond de Cabane must not speak with Ludovic of Hungary. His death would ensure her safety and pacify the King. It must be done.
She trembled and moaned into her hands. She recalled Ludovic’s words: “Let des Beaux arrest him. It is not your vengeance.” Did he mean it was a task unfitting a woman?
Yet he had asked her for the man. He had believed her, and demanded Raymond as a pledge of her sincerity—it was wonderful that he had believed her.
She forgot Raymond in thinking upon that. What she had said yesterday in that farmhouse kitchen she could not recall. By what desperate arts of madness she had convinced him she did not know. But she remembered his face, his bearing—the manner in which he had said: “I believe you, cousin.”
And he should believe in her; whatever it meant to keep intact his faith in her, that she would do. Was such an one as Raymond de Cabane to blast her hopes and condemn her? When Ludovic of Hungary believed?
The door swung open and fell to. At a heavy footfall she looked up with dazed, sick eyes.
Raymond de Cabane had entered. His coarse face was a ghastly hue with rage and fatigue, dark and pallid; his eyes bloodshot and strained.
Giovanna, rising stiffly, saw that he was looking at her without even the scant respect that usually covered his brutality.
“So, you have been treating with the King?” he demanded roughly.
She had hoped that he might not have heard.
“Well?” she said, biting her ragged lips. “Well?”
Raymond de Cabane strode to the other side of the table. “What part did I play in your conditions?” he asked. “While I was fighting for you at Benevento, how were you bargaining for me at Aversa?”
The Queen answered unsteadily. Behind the pink velvet bodice her bosom rose painfully, as if her heart beat desperately for freedom under the tight gold cords. “Who has been speaking to you of these things?”
“It is common talk that you went to the Hungarians yesterday and turned their King to your purpose.”
She shrank before his heavy presence, his lowering face.
“You have come to a pact with the King of Hungary,” he continued fiercely. “Well—what of me?”
She did not answer.
“What of me?” he repeated. “And what of that matter I know?”
She lifted her shoulders, as if in self-protection, and drew closer together against the chair from which she had risen.
“Do you threaten?” she asked unpleasantly.
His face was black and heavy with wrath.
“I see no occasion for threats,” he said somberly. “You were clever enough to free yourself from the others—a fish hook through the tongue to silence them—but I live, and I know.” He came suddenly round the table, trembling with passion. “You white-faced witch! you would betray me for your convenience—to buy mercy from your Hungarian dupe——”
“It is not true,” flashed Giovanna. “I——”
“You lie,” interrupted Raymond hotly. “As you lied to him. As you lied to Ludovic that you were innocent of the King’s death. What manner of man is he to believe you? Innocent!” He drove the word home pitilessly. “When you were considering how you might decoy him to the convent, even as chance sent him—innocent, when it was at your feet——”
“Stop!” cried Giovanna hoarsely. “Is this your loyalty?” She faced him with desperate eyes and distended nostrils, her hands clasped across the bosom of her dress.
“I owe you no loyalty,” he retorted with passion. “I made you Queen. My hand kept you on the throne. Loyalty! I would have ridden over to Ludovic to make my peace by surrendering Naples. I should never have returned but for Maria!”
“You are very constant,” said Giovanna in a thick voice.
His bloodshot eyes turned a fierce glance on her. “I served you for your sister. I demand her. Everything is lost, but you owe me my reward—give me Maria d’Anjou.”
The Queen had no word for a long moment, then she answered in a voice barely audible:
“Would you be silent if I did?”
“Yes.”
But she dare not. Maria was promised to Ludovic. And then, could she trust him? No.
“You talk wildly,” she said. “Maria would not go with you—and the Hungarians will be in Naples in two days.”
His defaced armor rattled with his passionate breaths.
“Give me the key of her chamber—show me where it is. I shall not ask her if she will go. I have some men faithful. I will secure her and ride to Giordano.” He meant what he said. Desperate as it seemed, he meant it. She could doubt neither the intensity of his tone nor the fire in his eyes. She was silent, considering.
“Nay, bring her here,” continued Raymond eagerly. “Send for her now. Let me see her—speak to her. I could take her now—at once.”
Giovanna looked at him strangely.
“Well, I will not be ungrateful—you shall see her.” She moved in a heavy, weary manner to the door. When she reached it, she looked back over her shoulder. Raymond had seated himself at the table and was pouring out wine in the manner of a man worn out.
The Queen opened the door. In the blackness of the stairs the forms of men and the dull gleam of armor, the red locks of Luigi of Taranto and the crafty face of des Beaux showed obscurely.
“He is coming,” said the Queen in a steady whisper. “You know what to do.” And she shut the door. Slowly she returned to the table, where Raymond was drinking greedily.
“Maria is in the great hall alone,” she said. “So a page tells me—go to her there.”
He rose at once with flaming eyes. Ruined, desperate, the thought of seeing Maria d’Anjou was inspiration, strength.
“I shall take her to Giordano,” he said briskly. “I have enough men—she should be glad to leave Naples.” He strode past the Queen with contempt, but his wrath mollified. Let her not cheat him of Maria d’Anjou, and he cared not how many she duped or betrayed.
“May ye be more fortunate in your second King from Hungary,” he sneered. “As for me, I think I have finished with ye—farewell.”
“And I with ye,” she replied. “We have both played for our own ends, have we not?”
She preceded him to the door and opened it.
“Take care of the steps, Conte—it is dark.” She dragged her breath out painfully and trembled so that she had to lean against the wall. He, not thinking of her nor looking at her, stepped out. Instantly the Queen closed the door, bolted it, and flung herself against it with her hands over her ears. There was the sound of a hoarse cry, a struggle, the scuffling of feet, the clink of armor—it was very quickly over.
Giovanna remained, white, rigid, as if the life had been drained out of her, leaning against the heavy door, with her cold fingers in her ears and her vivid hair framing her face, with glazed eyes and strained, parted lips.
Sancia, coming from the inner chamber, saw her so, motionless, against the door, and all her old terrors reviving, she shrieked, falling back.
The Queen dropped her hands. “What is the matter?” she asked, and closed her eyes. “Where is Maria?”
Sancia, a shrinking figure in white, murmured an answer: “In her chamber, Madonna.”
“Ah, well—go,” said Giovanna.
The waiting woman disappeared and the room fell to silence.
The Queen began laughing in a ghastly fashion. “She does not know,” she muttered, as she crept along the wall, “that I am mad sometimes—that things come and talk to me—who was that?”
Her laughter began to be strangled with sobs.
“What am I doing? Oh, my head—my head!”
She dropped to her knees, crouching against the arras, and laughed again vacantly. Cautiously she looked round, and laid her finger on her lip with a cunning smile.
Then, with eager fingers, she tore the linen off her bosom, finding it under the pink velvet of her dress, and commenced rubbing the floor.
“How dark blood is!” she said, moistening her lips. “From the bed to the balcony.” Busily and noiselessly, on her hands and knees, she rubbed the unstained boards.
“If it dries, it never comes out,” she muttered. “Never—comes—out——”
Ludovic of Hungary paused in his march to Naples to visit the little gray convent of Santo-Pietro-a-Majello.
Toward sunset, a few men following him, he rode to the scene of his brother’s murder; up the fragrant garden where Andreas had passed only a few months ago, under the doorway Andreas had entered, laughing, the evening of September the thirteenth.
Ludovic spoke no word of his brother, but his usual arrogant demeanor was subdued to an utter quiet as the cowled monk conducted him to the chamber where Andreas had been murdered. The low, quiet chamber, hung with arras, picturing the virtues struggling with the vices.
The dying sun reddened walls and floor; touched the contorted figures in the tapestry and the placid gilt madonna on her bracket; the table below, and the brass bowl Queen Giovanna’s fingers had once filled with lilies. Through the open arches of the window showed the balcony, the little red roses with their long, thorny stems and crinkled leaves, and the wide landscape spreading toward Naples.
Ludovic pulled off his cap and stood inside the door looking about him. His tall figure, the splendor of his dress, the dark, wild beauty of his face showed in sharp contrast to the sunny, silent chamber, that appeared fitted better for the quiet presence of monks moving softly to and fro.
Presently he went to the window. The shifting of his chain armor, the clink of his huge spurs, broke the stillness sharply. In the last blaze of the sun his surtout, striped in scarlet and gold, and bearing the double-headed eagle, glistened fiercely as he stepped onto the balcony. The broken roses had grown again, the bloodstains been wiped away. On the balustrade where they had tied the rope a dove preened itself. A little warm wind stirred the scent from the vivid red blossoms. Ludovic leaned over the balustrade and looked down on the syringa bushes. Then he stepped back into the room.
Konrad of Gottif stood inside the door. The two men looked at each other.
“Where did he sleep?” asked the King.
Konrad pointed out the room. Ludovic crossed to the chamber, opened the door and glanced in.
Nothing there but an empty bed, an empty table and a bar of sunlight falling from a high window across the dusty floor.
The King closed the door. His dark face was markedly pale, his heavy brows frowning.
“And the Queen?” he asked, his tone lowered.
“The Queen slept in the chamber opposite.” Konrad of Gottif glanced at him curiously.
The King saw the look and paused in his walk across the room.
“Well?” he said. “An’ if she did, good my lord?”
“ ’Tis but a few paces from that room to the balcony,” was the answer. “God keep us from judgment, but——”
He paused, eying the King steadily.
“What more?” demanded Ludovic.
“Good my liege, she must have heard.”
“Must!” repeated Ludovic haughtily. “You would damn a woman on so small a surmise, Konrad of Gottif?”
He entered the Queen’s chamber without pausing for a reply.
There also was nothing out of the usual. It was a larger room than the other. In the center a carved bedstead hung with red, on one wall a crucifix, a dark chest, a chair completed the furniture.
Konrad of Gottif followed the King, his keen eyes fell on the bed.
“Mark the bed curtains, fair liege,” he said under his breath.
“Wherefore?” Ludovic glanced at them, half angrily. One was tied back with a thick silk cord, the other hung loose.
“You cannot hang a man without a rope,” said Konrad of Gottif dryly. “Where is the other cord?”
Ludovic looked at him in silence.
“What did they hang him with?” repeated the other. “Is it not a strange thing her bed should be so despoiled?”
“A hundred different matters might account for that, good Knight,” answered the King frowning. “Nay, we do not know that the chamber be as she left it.”
“The monks declare the rooms have been locked until they handed you the keys to-day——”
Ludovic interrupted him hotly:
“Would you tell me she was fiend enough to take the trappings from her bed to hang her husband—that his murderers entered her very chamber?”
Konrad of Gottif turned on his heel. “I have no more to say since you have sworn to believe this woman innocent.”
They descended into the outer room, and there the King, with a flushed face, laid his brown hand on Konrad’s sleeve.
“Tell me what you mean?” he said.
Konrad laughed. “What matter? I was your brother’s friend, my liege.”
Ludovic interrupted. “You think I am cold in his vengeance?” he demanded fiercely.
“I think,” was the steady answer, “that the woman won you too easily, by God, too easily!”
The dusky color flamed deeper in the King’s face; his brows lowered so that his eyes were hidden; he said nothing.
“When I rode to Hungary,” continued Konrad with flashing eyes, “it was to bring you to demand blood as the price of blood—blood spilled at the hands of a slave’s son—you came, armed with retribution, you defied the Church, you set Naples under your heel, very splendidly. Then this woman comes to you with soft words and you give her back her throne, and cry peace! when you should cry vengeance!”
“ ’Fore God, Konrad,” said the King thickly, “she is innocent!”
“You did not think so when the Princess Maria appealed to you—when you heard how Andreas had died, foully beneath her roof—what did you say then—‘between her and me the sword decides.’ ”
“I had not seen her then,” answered Ludovic in a hard voice. “I did not know——”
“That she had a baby face and golden hair,” flashed Konrad. “And a soft voice, and red lips to plead with——”
“Good my lord, you come near insolence,” Ludovic spoke evenly, but his square jaw was set hard as iron and the angry color glowed in his brown cheek.
But Konrad of Gottif, standing where his lord had been slain, speaking to the man whom he had brought to execute vengeance, was roused beyond any such consideration or fear of growing anger. “To be turned by a woman!” he said hotly. “You, a king and the avenger of a king—in one poor half hour to be swayed by a woman! How did she persuade you her husband’s death lay not at her door?”
Ludovic stood immovable. On his mouth a look of hard pride that came near obstinacy, in his hazel eyes an intolerant disdain of unpalatable speech. Sweet airs stole in through the windows, stirred the stiff surtout on his comely figure, and ruffled the heavy hair on his forehead.
“What proof, what evidence did she bring?” persisted Konrad of Gottif, breathing quickly.
From the height of his arrogance the King deigned to answer.
“None—it is sufficient that I believe her.”
Great wrath paled Count Konrad’s face.
“God wot, she is a witch, strong in the lures of the devil.”
The King’s lips curved into a hard smile.
“Think you I am a man easily bewitched, or one to follow the beckoning of a woman’s hand?” he asked proudly.
“Yea, I have always thought so——”
“Listen,” Ludovic interrupted, speaking impressively. “Good my friend—you mistake me, you mistake her—she has been the tool of many men, the puppet of a faction—I think she has done no evil thing in all her life.”
“You did not see her with your brother,” answered Konrad. “You did not mark how she insulted and flouted him——”
Ludovic made a half-turn about the room.
“Am I to bring judgment on her because she did not love her husband?” he demanded. “Well, I wot he was not of her choosing.”
Konrad’s hand fell to the strap of his sword, and clasped there fiercely.
“It is not for you, standing where he died, to make excuses for her or cheapen him to exalt her. I think you came to avenge Andreas, not to champion Giovanna.”
Ludovic looked at him steadily.
“And I do think I know my errand, Konrad of Gottif,” he frowned gloomily. “Most of those who slew him have already paid, and by her commands, mark that, she punished them.”
“Yet somewhat late for her fair fame,” answered the other sternly. “And what of Raymond de Cabane, to whom her sister is promised?”
“She has sworn to send him to me,” said Ludovic, “and I do think she will.”
“The slyer traitress she!” cried Konrad of Gottif. “What blacker thing than this—to sell her accomplice for her pardon?”
“So black a thing no woman would have the courage to do it,” answered Ludovic hotly. “It is proof enough in itself she is innocent. I say she looked at me straightly, she did not change color, no, nor tremble, when I asked for the murderer. Could guilt act so well? And the man has a tongue—would he be loyal to the mistress who had betrayed him—would he not speak—would she not think of that and be afraid?”
“The devil lends great cunning to his servants,” answered Konrad quietly.
The wrathful color darkened in the King’s somber face. His eyes, clear and bright behind the thick dusky lashes, turned a hard look on the Count.
“I say I do believe her,” he said, his soft voice strained with anger. “Would guilt have dared come to me as she came? Nought but innocence would have had such courage—and I do tell you, Konrad of Gottif, that I promised my lady cousin to enter Naples in all peace and friendship if she would keep her word with me as to Raymond de Cabane and her sister—and here in this accursed place, I vow to you, that neither speech nor deeds shall turn me from my given word.”
Konrad looked at the soft, clear-cut face, burning red in the brown cheeks with passion. He noted the stubborn curl of the beautiful mouth, the disdainful swell of the nostril, the eyes proud and masterful, the head held haughtily, and he answered wearily:
“You are not a man easy to advise, Ludovic of Hungary—you are the master—yet I am sorry for the Queen’s sister.”
“What of her?” The King spoke again with natural sweetness, but his proud face contradicted the softness of his speech.
“She is to be your wife—and, good, my liege, the Queen loves her not and she hates the Queen.”
Ludovic was silent. He gazed in front of him at the wide, rich landscape and the purple hills behind which the amber clouds of sunset floated.
“Even though you be very proud and very certain, have a care of this same Queen.”
Ludovic laughed gently.
“Why, would you warn me of my little cousin?”
“I would warn you of the woman who has beguiled you so far so easily,” answered Konrad sourly.
“Oh, hold your peace of that matter,” said the King. “However you rail against her you cannot move me. Think you that even if my little cousin wove spells and enchantments, I should fear them?”
“God wot you are a soft man to women. Take heed of this woman, lest she shame you with her lies.”
“Wearisome is this talk, Konrad of Gottif. If so greatly you mislike my actions—the road lies wide back to Hungary.”
Count Konrad strode to the door and laid his hand on the latch.
“I would rather return to Hungary than see the Queen triumph again—yea, rather return with my vengeance unglutted than watch you meet her in friendship—even though what some said at Buda when you left be repeated and I have to answer, ‘ ’Tis even so.’ ”
He opened the door. It seemed that he would leave in silence, when the King’s soft voice gave him pause.
“And what did they say at Buda?”
“They said, my lord of Hungary, that you did not gather your armies and leave your kingdom to avenge a boy’s blood, but for glory, wanton triumph, and pleasure.”
The King turned swiftly, the gold coat shimmering on the silver light of his armor.
“They lied,” he said languidly. “But go you and confirm their lie if you dare. My motives are not for common questioning. They rest between me and God, and the actions of my sword hand are above any man’s asking.”
Konrad of Gottif descended, without a sound, into the blackness of the narrow stairs.
The sun had set, leaving the chamber in the purple light of twilight, the haggard figures of the combatants on the tapestry appeared to glow with a ghostly life in the uncertain lights and shadows. Under their feet their names were worked in twisted scrolls. Ludovic found himself idly reading them: Prudence, Valor, Fidelity, Humility, trampling on the writhing forms of Pride, Greed, Envy, Sloth, and Malice. The placid little Madonna smiled from the dark bracket. Without the fine stems and thin leaves of the roses quivered dark against the sweep of light fading sky.
Ludovic moved softly down the room, again opened the door of the Queen’s chamber and looked in. Ghostly now it seemed with the heavy blackness cast by the curtains over the dismantled bed, the pearl pale square of light window in the darkness of the wall.
Here she had lain that night while outside her door the King was murdered. Only a short time ago, yet for the inscrutable silence, for the blankness of walls and stones, it might have been a thousand years since blood was shed.
There was no mark nor stain of it, no echo of a desperate struggle, no sound of wild shrieks imprisoned forever, no ghost of a young King lurking in the doorways, nothing but three empty rooms, a stone balcony grown with peaceful roses, and a wide view of an evening landscape. Yet under all his panoply of studded armor and trappings of heavy silk, Ludovic of Hungary shivered as if on the sudden it had fallen cold. A curious sense of mistrust of Giovanna came over him, a feeling in no way the result of Konrad’s words, but rather part of the atmosphere of the place and the sight of that cordless red curtain hanging by her deserted bed, but—he was “a man soft to women.”
He went heavily downstairs, shutting the door carefully, as if it were the gate of a tomb. Below in the dim pillared hall, the abbot and some of the monks waited for him. He handed them the keys.
“Tell me what happened that night,” he said. He seated himself under one of the lancet-shaped windows, and through the scarlet and blue of the pictured saints a faint-colored light fell upon the circlet of curls on his dark head, the folds of the yellow mantle on his shoulders, and the clasp of gold and green at his full throat. It caught also the end of his long pointed steel shoe resting on the flags, and glittered down his greaves.
“Tell me the manner of my brother’s death,” he said, shifting his question into a plainer form.
The Abbot motioned forward the two monks who had recited the psalms by the side of Andreas. One of them commenced speaking, his cowl shrouding his face, his voice low and even.
“Where the King lodged is far from our cells and chapel. We heard nothing save some faint sounds that we thought were the soldiers brawling until Madonna Maria came to seek us.”
“So she had heard something?” questioned Ludovic under his breath.
“Shrieking, she said. She vowed the King was being murdered——”
“Why should she think it was the King?” demanded Ludovic.
“Because of the ill terms that he was on with the Queen and the Queen’s friends. We followed her to the King’s apartment and found it empty. We knocked at the Queen’s chamber and received no answer.”
The speaker was an old man. He interrupted himself with feeble coughs, then continued in his impassive voice:
“Madonna Maria found blood on the floor of the outer chamber and a rope tied to the balcony. We descended to the garden and discovered the King. His head had been smashed with the fall and he lay in his own blood—it was among the syringa bushes. Two of us went to the Queen’s chamber and said, ‘Madonna, what shall we do with the body of your husband?’ She gave no answer. Early in the morning she returned to Naples with the Conte Raymond.”
The old monk coughed again; the gloomy shadows gathered among the grim pillars; the colors faded from the windows.
Through the gloom came the King’s soft voice:
“What rope did they hang him with?”
“The cord from the Queen’s bed.”
Ludovic made a quick movement. “How may you tell?”
“By the piece they left hanging to the balcony. One spake of it to the Queen. She said that early in the day one of them crept into her room and stole it, as it was the only cord in the convent, and their design was to hang the King.”
“That may well be,” said Ludovic quietly.
A little novice lit a thick yellow candle. The pointed red flame leaped up, smoking, and showed the gray arches sweeping into the shadow of the roof, and struck into points of glitter the rings on the King’s hand, his armor, and the gold threads on the scarlet surtout.
In the doorway waited the Hungarians he had brought with him. He rose and called one of them. The novice holding the candle stood in front of the cowled monks gazing at the warriors; as his hands shook, the light shifted vaguely in trailing yellow shapes over the half-seen figures.
Ludovic took his gauntlets from one knight and spoke to another. They heard him laugh in a weary fashion, then the soft bright chinking of gold. He turned and stepped close to the novice, the candle light falling over him.
“Pray for a King unshriven,” he said briefly, “and a foully murdered man.”
He flung his gauntlet at the monk’s feet and the gold pieces with which it was filled rolled over the floor, shining like flame.
Before the little novice rose the image of Humility in the tapestry upstairs, a meek figure in his sad-colored robe, and his companion, Pride. Ludovic of Hungary, flinging his gift to God as if it were a dole to a beggar, minded him of Pride in the arras. He stared at the gorgeous King, and the money rolled unheeded under his long robe.
“How shall such prosper?” whispered the monk next him. “A man of blazoned arrogance.”
The King passed into the garden and mounted in silence. Against the wall leaned Konrad of Gottif, and Ludovic spoke to him.
“What do you muse on, Konrad of Gottif?” His bare right hand tightened on the reins, his eyes held a challenge.