It was yet noon when Adrian beheld before him the lofty mountains that
shelter Palestrina, the Praeneste of the ancient world. Back to a
period before Romulus existed, in the earliest ages of that mysterious
civilisation which in Italy preceded the birth of Rome, could be traced
the existence and the power of that rocky city. Eight dependent towns
owned its sway and its wealth; its position, and the strength of those
mighty walls, in whose ruins may yet be traced the masonry of the remote
Pelasgi, had long braved the ambition of the neighbouring Rome. From
that very citadel, the Mural Crown (Hence, apparently, its Greek name of
Stephane. Palestrina is yet one of the many proofs which the vicinity of
Rome affords of the old Greek civilization of Italy.) of the mountain,
had waved the standard of Marius; and up the road which Adrian’s scanty
troop slowly wound, had echoed the march of the murtherous Sylla, on his
return from the Mithridatic war. Below, where the city spread towards
the plain, were yet seen the shattered and roofless columns of the once
celebrated Temple of Fortune; and still the immemorial olives clustered
grey and mournfully around the ruins.
A more formidable hold the Barons of Rome could not have selected; and
as Adrian’s military eye scanned the steep ascent and the rugged walls,
he felt that with ordinary skill it might defy for months all the power
of the Roman Senator. Below, in the fertile valley, dismantled cottages
and trampled harvests attested the violence and rapine of the insurgent
Barons; and at that very moment were seen, in the old plain of the
warlike Hernici, troops of armed men, driving before them herds of sheep
and cattle, collected in their lawless incursions. In sight of that
Praeneste, which had been the favourite retreat of the luxurious Lords
of Rome in its most polished day, the Age of Iron seemed renewed.
The banner of the Colonna, borne by Adrian’s troop, obtained ready
admittance at the Porta del Sole. As he passed up the irregular
and narrow streets that ascended to the citadel, groups of foreign
mercenaries,--half-ragged, half-tawdry knots of abandoned women,--mixed
here and there with the liveries of the Colonna, stood loitering amidst
the ruins of ancient fanes and palaces, or basked lazily in the sun,
upon terraces, through which, from amidst weeds and grass, glowed the
imperishable hues of the rich mosaics, which had made the pride of that
lettered and graceful nobility, of whom savage freebooters were now the
heirs.
The contrast between the Past and Present forcibly occurred to Adrian,
as he passed along; and, despite his order, he felt as if Civilization
itself were enlisted against his House upon the side of Rienzi.
Leaving his train in the court of the citadel, Adrian demanded admission
to the presence of his cousin. He had left Stefanello a child on his
departure from Rome, and there could therefore be but a slight and
unfamiliar acquaintance betwixt them, despite their kindred.
Peals of laughter came upon his ear, as he followed one of Stefanello’s
gentlemen through a winding passage that led to the principal chamber.
The door was thrown open, and Adrian found himself in a rude hall, to
which some appearance of hasty state and attempted comfort had been
given. Costly arras imperfectly clothed the stone walls, and the rich
seats and decorated tables, which the growing civilization of the
northern cities of Italy had already introduced into the palaces of
Italian nobles, strangely contrasted the rough pavement, spread with
heaps of armour negligently piled around. At the farther end of the
apartment, Adrian shudderingly perceived, set in due and exact order,
the implements of torture.
Stefanello Colonna, with two other Barons, indolently reclined on seats
drawn around a table, in the recess of a deep casement, from which might
be still seen the same glorious landscape, bounded by the dim spires
of Rome, which Hannibal and Pyrrhus had ascended that very citadel to
survey!
Stefanello himself, in the first bloom of youth, bore already on his
beardless countenance those traces usually the work of the passions and
vices of maturest manhood. His features were cast in the mould of the
old Stephen’s; in their clear, sharp, high-bred outline might be noticed
that regular and graceful symmetry, which blood, in men as in animals,
will sometimes entail through generations; but the features were wasted
and meagre. His brows were knit in an eternal frown; his thin and
bloodless lips wore that insolent contempt which seems so peculiarly
cold and unlovely in early youth; and the deep and livid hollows round
his eyes, spoke of habitual excess and premature exhaustion. By him sat
(reconciled by hatred to one another) the hereditary foes of his race;
the soft, but cunning and astute features of Luca di Savelli, contrasted
with the broad frame and ferocious countenance of the Prince of the
Orsini.
The young head of the Colonna rose with some cordiality to receive his
cousin. “Welcome,” he said, “dear Adrian; you are arrived in time to
assist us with your well-known military skill. Think you not we shall
stand a long siege, if the insolent plebeian dare adventure it? You know
our friends, the Orsini and the Savelli? Thanks to St. Peter, or Peter’s
delegate, we have now happily meaner throats to cut than those of each
other!”
Thus saying, Stefanello again threw himself listlessly on his seat, and
the shrill, woman’s voice of Savelli took part in the dialogue.
“I would, noble Signor, that you had come a few hours earlier: we are
still making merry at the recollection--he, he, he!”
“Ah, excellent,” cried Stefanello, joining in the laugh; “our cousin has
had a loss. Know Adrian, that this base fellow, whom the Pope has
had the impudence to create Senator, dared but yesterday to send us a
varlet, whom he called--by our Lady!--his ambassador!”
“Would you could have seen his mantle, Signor Adrian!” chimed in the
Savelli: “purple velvet, as I live, decorated in gold, with the arms of
Rome: we soon spoiled his finery.”
“What!” exclaimed Adrian, “you did not break the laws of all nobility
and knighthood?--you offered no insult to a herald!”
“Herald, sayst thou?” cried Stefanello, frowning till his eyes were
scarce visible. “It is for Princes and Barons alone to employ heralds.
An’ I had had my will, I would have sent back the minion’s head to the
usurper.”
“What did ye then?” asked Adrian, coldly.
“Bade our swineherds dip the fellow in the ditch, and gave him a night’s
lodging in a dungeon to dry himself withal.”
“And this morning--he, he, he!” added the Savelli, “we had him before
us, and drew his teeth, one by one;--I would you could have heard the
fellow mumble out for mercy!”
Adrian rose hastily, and struck the table fiercely with his gauntlet.
“Stefanello Colonna,” said he, colouring with noble rage, “answer me:
did you dare to inflict this indelible disgrace upon the name we jointly
bear? Tell me, at least, that you protested against this foul treason to
all the laws of civilization and of honour. You answer not. House of the
Colonna, can such be thy representative!”
“To me these words!” said Stefanello, trembling with passion. “Beware!
Methinks thou art the traitor, leagued perhaps with yon rascal mob. Well
do I remember that thou, the betrothed of the Demagogue’s sister, didst
not join with my uncle and my father of old, but didst basely leave the
city to her plebeian tyrant.”
“That did he!” said the fierce Orsini, approaching Adrian menacingly,
while the gentle cowardice of Savelli sought in vain to pluck him back
by the mantle--“that did he! and but for thy presence, Stefanello--”
“Coward and blusterer!” interrupted Adrian, fairly beside himself with
indignation and shame, and dashing his gauntlet in the very face of
the advancing Orsini--“wouldst thou threaten one who has maintained, in
every list of Europe, and against the stoutest Chivalry of the North,
the honour of Rome, which thy deeds the while disgraced? By this gage,
I spit upon and defy thee. With lance and with brand, on horse and on
foot, I maintain against thee and all thy line, that thou art no knight
to have thus maltreated, in thy strongholds, a peaceful and unarmed
herald. Yes, even here, on the spot of thy disgrace, I challenge thee to
arms!”
“To the court below! Follow me,” said Orsini, sullenly, and striding
towards the threshold. “What, ho there! my helmet and breast-plate!”
“Stay, noble Orsini,” said Stefanello. “The insult offered to thee is my
quarrel--mine was the deed--and against me speaks this degenerate scion
of our line. Adrian di Castello--sometime called Colonna--surrender your
sword: you are my prisoner!”
“Oh!” said Adrian, grinding his teeth, “that my ancestral blood did
not flow through thy veins--else--but enough! Me! your equal, and the
favoured Knight of the Emperor, whose advent now brightens the frontiers
of Italy!--me--you dare not detain. For your friends, I shall meet
them yet perhaps, ere many days are over, where none shall separate our
swords. Till then, remember, Orsini, that it is against no unpractised
arm that thou wilt have to redeem thine honour!”
Adrian, his drawn sword in his hand, strode towards the door, and passed
the Orsini, who stood, lowering and irresolute, in the centre of the
apartment.
Savelli whispered Stefanello. “He says, ‘Ere many days be past!’ Be
sure, dear Signor, that he goes to join Rienzi. Remember, the alliance
he once sought with the Tribune’s sister may be renewed. Beware of him!
Ought he to leave the castle? The name of a Colonna, associated with the
mob, would distract and divide half our strength.”
“Fear me not,” returned Stefanello, with a malignant smile. “Ere you
spoke, I had determined!”
The young Colonna lifted the arras from the wall, opened a door, and
passed into a low hall, in which sate twenty mercenaries.
“Quick!” said he. “Seize and disarm yon stranger in the green
mantle--but slay him not. Bid the guard below find dungeons for his
train. Quick! ere he reach the gate.”
Adrian had gained the open hall below--his train and his steed were in
sight in the court--when suddenly the soldiery of the Colonna, rushing
through another passage than that which he had passed, surrounded and
intercepted his retreat.
“Yield thee, Adrian di Castello,” cried Stefanello from the summit of
the stairs; “or your blood be on your own head.”
Three steps did Adrian make through the press, and three of his enemies
fell beneath his sword. “To the rescue!” he shouted to his band, and
already those bold and daring troopers had gained the hall. Presently
the alarum bell tolled loud--the court swarmed with soldiers. Oppressed
by numbers, beat down rather than subdued, Adrian’s little train was
soon secured, and the flower of the Colonna, wounded, breathless,
disarmed, but still uttering loud defiance, was a prisoner in the
fortress of his kinsman.