the multitude. “To the gibbet with the wizard and sorcerer!”
“To the Doom, to the Doom!” shouted the stout yeoman. “_To the Doom_,
but not to the gibbet!”
Robin the Rough smiled and waved his hand to the Moors who led the barbs
of Arimanes down the steep, while Damian and Halbert followed at their
heels, bearing the Fratricide to his doom.--
Meanwhile the multitude thronging from the castle-gate, in one dense
crowd, began to darken over the rocks that hedged in the moat, as the
men-at-arms followed Aldarin down the hilly road, their upraised swords
glittering in the first beams of the morning sun.
At the foot of the hill there lay a piece of level earth, some hundred
paces square, sloping toward the east into a green meadow, backed by a
wood; on the west it was hedged in by the forest trees, on the north
arose the road leading to the castle, while towards the south the
highway to Florence wound upwards along the brow of a precipitous hill.
Arrived at this level space--the theatre of the last and most fearful
scene in his life--Aldarin beheld the stout yeoman ranging the
men-at-arms along the foot of the hill, shoulder to shoulder, presenting
one firm compact front, their upraised swords glittering over their
sable plumes, their armor of steel shining in the morning sun. At his
very side, in the centre of the level space, the wild horses of the
desert were rearing and plunging in the hold of their grooms, as their
shrill and piercing neigh broke on the air.
Aldarin cast his gaze above.
There crowding along the rocks, that confined the moat, form after form
face after face, thronged the vassals of Albarone, gazing with silence
and awe, upon the strange scenes passing in the valley below. For the
moment every voice was stilled, every cry was silenced; with hushed
breath and fixed brows, the men of Albarone, awaited the last scene of
this tragedy.
And as Aldarin gazed around, he beheld two soldiers advance, holding
thongs in their hands twisted out of the hide of the wild bull, while
the tawny Moors, at a sign from Robin the Rough, placed their steeds
haunch to haunch, the heads of two of the barbs looking towards the
east, while the others were turned towards the west.
Robin the Rough advanced.
He gazed for a moment around the scene, and then approaching the side of
Aldarin, spoke in a calm and even tone, as though the dignity of his
solemn office, the avenger of the dead, imbued and elevated his soul.
“Thou hast invoked the blow, thou hast defied the steel, blasphemed our
religion, and mocked our God.”
“Traitor and Fratricide--turn thee and behold the vengeance of that
God.”
“Behold the manner of thy death--Murderer, look at these barbs of the
desert; see how they paw the earth, how their quivering nostrils snuff
the air--mark those forms of strength, those sinews of iron!”
“Ere an hundred can be told, lashed to the limbs of these horses, thine
accursed carcass shall be scattered to the winds of heaven, while thy
blood-stained soul, goes trembling to its last account! Thou art a brave
man--we would listen to thee, while thou makest a merry mock of death,
and of such a death as this!”
Aldarin turned, he looked at the wild horses, placed haunch to haunch; a
deformed Moor holding each steed; he marked their forms of strength,
their sinews of iron; and a slight tremor, scarce perceptible, passed
over his frame.
“I am ready--” he slowly and distinctly spoke, with a calm smile--“I am
ready even for this death. Cowards and slaves I defy ye!”
“Thou art a wise man--” again spoke Robin the Rough in his mocking
tone--“and yet mere fools have deceived and duped thee! Yesternight,
within the confines of the Red-Chamber, thou didst wait the coming of a
Brother-wizard who was to journey from the far wilds of the east. Thy
brother-wizard twenty-four hours agone, rode from the very walls of
Florence, secured by the favor of this tyrant-duke--Ha! dost thou
tremble?”
“This--this--is false!” gasped Aldarin--“Ibrahim journeyed not from the
wilds of the east.”
“He came from the east attended by a train of twelve Arab knights and a
band of Christian warriors, whom the courtesy of the Crusades, gave to
the service of the friend of Saladin. He arrived at Florence, he beheld
the tyrant duke, and at high noon yesterday rode from the walls of the
city, bound for the Castle of Albarone. He was a venerable man and a
mighty, this Ibrahim--for his long beard--ha,--ha--trailed down to his
very breast! Who was it that made captives of his companie, and confined
his own royal person in bonds, while the men of Sir Geoffrey wended to
the castle clad in the garments of the Arabian retinue? Old man breathe
the question in a murmured voice for it was the work of--THE INVISIBLE.”
Aldarin veiled his face in his hands, and pressed his lips between his
teeth, until the blood trickled down to his very chin.
“Off with the murderer’s attire!” shrieked Robin the Rough--“Off with
tunic and hose, belt and boots! Strip him to the very skin! Demon, thy
magical pranks shall not avail thee, now! We will lead thee to thy
death, unarmed with magic casket or wizard phial! Advance comrades and
disrobe the murderer!”
Aldarin raised his head as the soldiers with the thongs advanced, while
the men-at-arms noted that his face was ghastly white in hue, yet calm
as the Summer Morn then dawning in the eastern sky.
“Is there not one man in all this crowd, who will bear a message from a
father to his daughter!” he slowly exclaimed--“The Ladye Annabel, she is
my child, and--by the fiend ye dare not refuse a father’s request!”
There was a pause, while two figures clad and veiled in sweeping robes
of sable, stole silently thro’ the throng of the men-at-arms, and stood
beside Robin the Rough.
“Will no man hear the last words of a--father to his child?”
“I--I--will bear the message--” exclaimed one of the sable figures,
speaking from the folds of his robe--“I will bear thy dying words to the
Ladye Annabel!”
Aldarin trembled. He knew the voice; and strange memories came crowding
around him, as he fancied the tones of his murdered brother living again
in that husky sound.
“Bear the parchment scroll to the Ladye Annabel. Tell her--tell her--it
came from the hands of _one_ who loved her thro’ life, and gave his lost
thoughts to _her_, in the hour of a fearful death. And look ye man--” he
continued in quick and gasping tones--“ye need not tell her, how her
father died--ye need not speak of his doom--say to her, that Aldarin
died in his bed.”
“I will--I will--as God lives I will!”
“Tell her that Aldarin with his last words, blessed her with the
blessing of the God in whom she believes!”
“It shall be done!” exclaimed the voice, and the hand of the veiled
Figure grasped the parchment scroll--“It shall be done!”
Robin turned from the scene, and gazed above. “How say ye men of
Albarone--” he shouted pointing to the Barbs of Arimanes--“shall the
Wild Horses, rend the body of the murderer into atoms? Is our sentence
just?”
There arose from rock, from hill, from valley one shout--“It is the
judgment of Heaven--the judgment of Heaven!”
Slowly and silently the soldiers disrobed the Scholar, and at last he
stood disclosed in the light, with the folds of his under tunic floating
around his slender form.
“Lead him to his doom?” shouted Robin the Rough.
“Ye shall not lead the old man to this fearful death!” arose the shriek
of the Figure who had received the parchment from the hands of the
Scholar--“I forbid this work of doom!”
The robe fell from the form of the stranger, and Adrian Di Albarone
confronted the stout yeoman, his hands upraised, and his blue eye
gleaming with a wild light, as he shrieked forth the words, “I forbid
this work of doom!”
“Adrian Di Albarone,” exclaimed the deep-toned voice of Robin the Rough,
as he seemed inspired with an awful feeling of the duty which he owed
the dead; “to-morrow, these gallant men, the vassals clustering round
yon heights, and thy poor servitor, who stands before thee, will joy to
call thee--Lord!--This day is sacred to another master, to another
Lord--this day is sacred to the God of vengeance. This day we own no
earthly rule, we stand apart from all human things; we have sworn not to
eat, nor drink, nor sleep until we have fulfilled the work of doom!”
“Thou will not scorn my prayer for mercy;--Adrian Di Albarone asks the
old man’s life of thee! He is stained with my father’s blood, but I
would not have him die this fearful death--spare the old man’s life!”
“I am the avenger of Lord Julian of Albarone! Ask the God above to spare
the fratricide--for I cannot, cannot stay HIS judgment!”
Adrian turned away, for the stern faces of the men-at-arms told him that
his pleadings were all in vain. And as he glided from the place of
death, the robes were thrust aside from the face of the other figure,
and every eye beheld the visage of Albertine the monk.
“Old man,” exclaimed the voice of Albertine, from the shrouded folds of
his robe, “hast thou no prayer to offer, no words of penitence to speak
ere thou art led to thy doom?”
“I am ready for my death;” exclaimed Aldarin, extending his arms--
“I scorn your whining prayers, and as for words of penitence--look
ye--is there aught of repentance written on this cheek or brow?”
“To whom dost thou resign thy soul!”
“To the AWFUL SOUL OF THE UNIVERSE!”
Thus exclaimed the fated man, as his slender form rose proudly erect
while his extended hands were raised in the act of solemn appeal.
“Ye may tear this body into fragments, ye may rend this carcass into
atoms, doom me to the death of fire, or consign this form to the decay
of the charnel-house, _yet ye cannot destroy Aldarin_! His soul will
live and live forever! It may float on the unseen winds, it may glare in
the lightning’s flash, or strike in the thunderbolt; it may come back to
the earth, in the storm, the horror and the doom: or it may wander far,
far in the solitudes of the VAST UNKNOWN, where eternal fires lash the
shores of desolated worlds--still will it live and live forever! A beam
of the AWFUL SOUL can never die!”
Albertine gazed upon the erect form and flashing eye of the Scholar and
saw that his labour was in vain. With a look which mingled bitter and
contrasted feelings, he turned away from the scene, gathering the folds
of his robe over his face as he disappeared.
“Lead me to the death,” cried Aldarin in a tone of bitter scorn. “Or are
ye afraid of a weak and withered old man? Ha--ha! ye are brave men!”
“Lead him to his death!” echoed Robin the Rough.
Attired in his under tunic, Aldarin was led forward. Damian seized him
by the shoulders and Halbert his feet. They raised him upon the haunches
of the steeds, with his head to the east.
Robin the Rough advanced, and grasping a thong, twisted out of the wild
bull’s hide, from the hands of one of the men-at-arms, slowly wound the
cord around the body of one of the wild horses, and looping it in a firm
knot, secured the right arm of Aldarin to the back of the restless
steed; while Damian bound the left to the other steed, Halbert, assisted
by the men-at-arms, bound his legs to the backs of the opposite horses,
winding the thongs again and again, around the bodies of the impatient
Arabs, until his blood spouted from the withered flesh of the
fratricide.
“Wind your thongs yet tighter friends of mine!” the sneer broke
gaspingly from the lips of the doomed. “I defy your malice and laugh at
your doom!”
The interest now was most absorbing and intense.
Along the whole extent of blackened rocks, frowning above the level
space, gathered the multitude gazing on the scene with gasping breath
and woven brows; while the men-at-arms, circling along the base of the
hill, stood silent and motionless, their upraised swords still
glittering in the first beams of the morning sun.
And there, in the centre of the space of highway earth, placed haunch to
haunch, stood the barbs of Arimanes, their eyes flashing as though a
demon-soul lived and moved within each sinewy form; there were gathered
the deformed Moors, each sable groom holding an ebon steed by the
nostrils, for the bridles were now cast aside; there, standing at the
side of each wild horse, the avengers of the dead, with the right leg
advanced and dagger drawn, awaited the word of vengeance; and there,
with his face turned upward to heaven, helpless and motionless, intense
pain shooting through every vein, and quivering along every sinew,
filling his brain with fire, his heart with ice, Aldarin the fratricide
smiled in scorn, as the moment of his doom came hurrying on.
“Avengers of your Lord,” shouted Robin the Rough, “raise your daggers,
and as the word falls from my lips, bury them to the hilt in the flank
of each steed!”
“A word--a single word,” whispered Aldarin, in a subdued voice. “Draw
near--I would say my last farewell--”
“What would’st thou have?” exclaimed one of the men-at-arms, advancing.
“When I am dying, ere the heart is cold, or the brow chill, approach and
gaze upon my countenance, and as you gaze, take to your very soul.”
“Speak--man of blood--thy moments are well nigh spent.”
“Take to your very soul,” whispered the fratricide, as he slowly, and
with difficulty, brought his head round to his right shoulder--“THE
CURSE OF ALDARIN!”
“Avengers of your Lord,” exclaimed the stout yeoman--“strike deep, every
man into the flanks of his steed!”
“_The curse_,” shrieked a hollow voice, “_The Curse of Aldarin!_”
“Strike,--I say--strike!”
The daggers sunk into the flanks of the horses, buried to the hilts; the
Moors leaped back; the maddened steeds sprang forward, with one wild
bound, straining every sinew in the effort to free themselves from their
accursed burden.
It was in vain.
They sank back, with a maddening howl, each steed upon his haunches, the
accursed fratricide uttered a yell of intense and overwhelming agony--it
died on his lips!
With eyes of fire with streaming manes, their nostrils extended, and all
their vigour gathered for the effort, the steeds again leaped forward,
springing madly from each other, and darting into the air, with one
terrible impulse--
The scene swam for an instant before the vision of the spectators.
They looked again. A limbless trunk lay in the dust of the highway,
spouting streams of blood--along the green meadow careered two black
steeds--through the dense forest thundered the others.
One of the men-at-arms, approaching the carcass, gazed for a moment at
the dread face. His eye glanced over expressions of the features,
convulsed by the throes of the parting soul; the eye yet fired with
hate, the lip curved with scorn; the sunken jaw oozing blood from every
pore; the quivering flesh and changing hues of the visage. All the
ghastliness and fear of this countenance, met his vision at a glance; he
uttered a howl of horror, and fell stiffened upon the earth, as the last
spark of life fled from the remains of the fratricide. When the soldier
awoke, his eye was vacant, and his reason gone. He was a maniac! He had
received the last words of the Doomed, and the Curse was on him forever.
Another moment passed, and the crowd came rushing from the rocky steeps,
filling the air with fierce shouts, and wild yells of execration, while
the men-at-arms, circled round the bleeding trunk, gazing upon the wild
and unearthly countenance of the Scholar, in wonder and in awe, each man
whispering to his comrade, a word of fear, as he marked the expression
of blasphemous and fiend-like scorn, stamped upon the visage of the
FRATRICIDE.
And while they circled round, struck dumb with a nameless awe, two
Figures, arrayed in robes of sable, rushed through the throng and
confronted Robin the Rough, as he stood stern, silent and awe-stricken,
they gazed upon the Dead.
“It is--” exclaimed the solemn voice of Adrian Di Albarone--“It is the
judgment of Heaven!”
From rock, from hill, from valley, from forest and from castle-wall,
arose the stern echo,--
“The Judgment of Heaven--the Judgment of Heaven!”
On, on, like lightning, darted the ebon steeds, bearing the torn and
shattered limbs, reeking with the life blood, yet warm and smoking. On,
on as tho’ the spirit of the lost, had entered their maddened forms. On,
on, they flew!
Onward! and onward! sped the wild horses, tracking their course with
blood, and rushing past the cottages of the affrighted peasantry, like
beings of the unreal world, fired with the soul of Arimanes, cursed with
the Spirit of the _Evil One_! Onward and Onward!
One brave barb, came plunging from the depths of a wood, and a precipice
mighty and steep, was before him, but he heeded it not. Down an hundred
fathoms into the boiling water he fell.
Another black steed sank into the calm waters of a placid river; another
reached the sea, and plunging in its depths, swam far, far, into the
wide expanse of the waters and was heard of no more.
The last--swept like the wind, by hamlet and tower and town. The
live-long day he urged on his career. The blood streaming from his
nostrils, his limbs weakened, and his sinews unstrung, he entered the
confines of a long valley, where a calm lake, gave its bosom to the
evening sun.
His pace was unsteady and he staggered to and fro, yet still the bloody
fragment hung at his back. At last he fell and died, and the scene of
his death was before a pleasant cottage on the green hill side. Much
wondered the solitary Student of the cot, as he surveyed the carcass of
the gallant steed. Little did he wot from whence he sped or the cause of
his flight.
Meanwhile gathering around the shapeless trunk, the men of Albarone
built a pile of the branches of oaks, that had lain mouldering for years
in the forest, and soon a broad bright flame arose, and it burned till
the setting of the sun, when a storm gathered in the west, and heralded
by thunder, and armed with lightning, it swept over the earth, and the
ashes of the _fratricide_, mingling with the whirlwind, never more
polluted the green bosom of the earth.
Thus runs the legend of the Doom of the Poisoner, thus runs the legend
of the death that befel.
ALDARIN THE FRATRICIDE.
BOOK THE FOURTH.
THE QUEEN OF FLORENCE.
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
A SILVERY MOON AND A CLOUDLESS SKY.
THE AGED DAME OF THE COT ON THE HILLSIDE LEARNS THE MYSTERY OF AN
UNFASTENED DOUBLET.
“Night among the mountains--oh, glorious and beautiful!” arose the voice
of the Wanderer, as with one bold grasp he attained the topmost rock of
the hoary steep, rising far above forest and stream--“Night among the
mountains--the calm moonbeams sleeping on the lake--the boundless azure
arching above--the rolling sweep of forest and the rugged outline of
precipice and steep--the far-off convent, its towers looming through the
distance, like a cloud of evil omen--Night among the mountains, glorious
and grand and beautiful!
“Thank God for the breeze, the cool and freshening breeze! It sweeps
over my forehead, burning as with the ravages of hidden flame, it bears
the fever from my cheek, and the madness from my brain. And yet I must
on, and on--afar I behold the peaceful cot, appearing amid the
luxuriance of the hill-side vines--my steed lays bleeding and dead in
the vale below, still must I on, and on!
“God of Heaven, will that face never depart from my soul, the brow
darkened by superhuman hate, the eyes all aflame with the Curse of the
Fratricide, the white lips, and the sunken jaws; with the blood oozing
from every pore! Even now I behold the face! And to her ear--help me
Saints of Light--to _her_ ear must I bear the manner of his doom!
“The moon shines in the heavens, calm and beautiful--when the mild
radiance of her beams pales before the glory of the uprising sun--then,
then, will the angels of fate, write in the books of the Unknown, the
Doom of Adrian, the last of the race of Albarone!”
And as the words broke murmuring from his lips, he flung his form from
the summit of the steep, and grasping with eager hands the point of each
projecting rock, at last descended to the bed of the valley, and sped
onward on his errand of woe, while higher in the heavens up rose the
moon.
High in the heavens arose the full orbed moon, and calm and lovely was
the sight, as enthroned in the very zenith of the boundless azure, this
thing of beauty and of beams, shed a shower of silver radiance down on
the silent bosom of the quiet vale, mirroring her rounded glory in the
deep waters of the mountain lake, giving a ghastly lustre to the white
precipice, from whose foundations arose the walls of the lonely convent,
mossy with age and darkened by time.
In this wide world of ours--so runs the wild rhapsody of the Chronicler
of the ancient MSS.--in this wide world of ours, there are, I ween, many
things sublime and beautiful and grand, yet what sight may compare with
a cloudless heaven, a silvery moon and a lovely extent of woody hills
and grassy vales? Never minstrel struck harp--never romancer spoke the
fancies of his brain, that did not hymn thy praise, O! beauteous thing
of brilliance and of beams! For ages and for ages thou hast held thy way
of glory through the arching heavens--thou hast looked down upon
warriors marching in all their pomp, and thou hast beheld their withered
forms strewn over the battle plain;--lovers have poured forth their love
beneath thy light, and again thou hast looked down upon their quiet
graves;--nations have risen and fallen;--monuments that gave promise of
eternal duration, have crumbled in the dust;--cities have towered in
deserts, and deserts have won the place of gorgeous cities, yet still
kind nurturer of holy thoughts, inspirer of heavenly fancies, yet still
thou passest on in thy course of light, and thus, with brilliance
unpaling and unpaled, glorious as when God first bade thee roll through
the azure expanse, thou shalt urge thy way until the final trump of
doom.
Arising in the calm moonbeams, the roof of the lonely cottage gave its
wreathing vines, all gay with flowers, to the motion of the night air,
while the gleam of a taper, shooting from a crevice of the closed
lattice, varied the shadows which darkened over one side of the
tenement, by a single thread of light.
Meanwhile the beams of the taper gave light to the principal chamber of
the cottage, where the stately mother of Leone the student, sate wrapt
in deep meditation.
“Strange!”--thus she murmured--“Strange! Scarce seven days since we
first concealed ourselves in this lonely vale, and Adrian--ha! I may be
overheard--Leone has won the friendship of this noble youth of Florence.
Not that he acquires honor thereby--by my troth, no!--the youth is a
good youth, and a fair, but the friendship of Emperors cannot add glory
to the heir of Albarone--fool that I am!--ever repeating the name of our
race! Strange it is, very strange, that the gentle Florian should take
up his abode in our cot! He is ever with Leone!--They walk, they eat,
they drink together, and together they pursue their studies! The fair
stranger shall in time become the leader of armies--but my son--the last
of an honored race, shall become a--_monk_. The thought is maddening!”
The dame arose and hurriedly paced the room. As she strode to and fro
she perceived the door of Leone’s apartment slightly ajar, and impelled
by mere restlessness, she took a mother’s privilege, and softly entered
the room.
No sooner had she opened the door, than a sight met her gaze, that
caused her to start back to the very threshold with astonishment.
Seated beside the table, on which a taper cast its dim light, over the
opened volume, the chairs of the students were drawn close together,
their backs were turned to the dame, the arm of Leone was around the
slender waist of the gentle Florian, and with their heads laid one
against the other, the rich golden locks of Leone mingled with a shower
of flaxen tresses that fell over the shoulders and down the back of the
fair stranger.
Treading on tip-toe and much wondering at the unusual length of
Florian’s hair, the dame approached.
“Thou art weary, my love”--the whisper broke from Florian’s lips--“thy
dress is soiled with dust and torn by travel--thy face is wan and
haggard, and--the Virgin save me--thine eyes are bloodshot! Thou hast
been absent two long and weary days. Hast journeyed far to-day, Adrian?”
“A score of miles, since the sunset hour.”