“Madonna,” he answered, “I have given you your desire and you pay my

price--I am content.”

The Queen’s violet eyes unclosed.

“Do you take it in so poor a spirit--is it not a swelling triumph--a

high victory for us?” she cried; then suddenly her tone was changed.

“You could not be so much a devil,” she said unsteadily, “as to take

lightly what we have paid so high to accomplish.” She sat down on her

regal mantle and pulled a handkerchief from her bosom and pressed it

to her lips. “Well, well,” she said feverishly, tapping her foot. “Do

you want anything of me? I have been paying, paying all of you till

you have fairly wrung the last ducat from me----”

“I want nothing more, Madonna,” said Conte Raymond, with a flicker of

a smile. By giving him her sister, her vast estates and the title of

heir to the throne Giovanna virtually acknowledged him her successor.

She caught his expression, and her eyes grew cunning.

“You and my second husband, my good lord, will have some policy to

settle.” She crumpled her handkerchief, red with the paint from her

lips, in restless hands.

“Your second husband, Madonna!” he said coldly. “I think a longer

widowhood were wiser--whom do you think of?”

“I know not,” answered Giovanna impatiently. “But do you think I will

rule Naples in lonely style? You have decreed to take your wife to

Giordano----”

“You have other willing counselors,” said Raymond de Cabane.

She gave him a fierce look and stamped her foot. “You know what this

Kingdom is--it is won, but it will prove hard to keep.” Her eager,

trembling fingers clutched the chair rails. “Does not the Bishop of

Cavaillon, my chancellor, tremble lest the Pope should interfere? The

archbishops who crown me to-day, Pisi, Bari, Capua, and Brindisi, wait

but a word from Avignon to--excommunicate me.”

“I know,” he answered.

The Queen’s chin sank upon her breast; her high, fair brows were

contracted in a frown.

“And the people,” she said to herself. “The guilds are rioting--the

master armorers and the bakers rose yesterday--I have the Veronese

mercenaries, the French troops--there are more sailing from

Marseilles--but the money--my God--I shall go mad for money.” She

looked round wildly at Raymond. “The Lombard terms are too high--we

cannot borrow there.”

“Better get the money from the Lombards than try to tax Naples,” said

the Conte Raymond grimly. “They will not give, and half the country

nobles are rebellious.”

“I must pay the Veronese,” muttered the Queen, “for their services in

clearing out the Hungarians--Bertrand d’Artois might advance the

money.”

Conte Raymond was silent. He saw that the Queen, with empty coffers,

self-seeking counselors and a disaffected kingdom, was on the verge of

a ruin a powerful, wealthy marriage alone could avert, and as all his

power would be exerted to prevent this, he looked to rise to the

throne she must fall from. The Queen, watching his coarse, swarthy

face, seemed to guess something of his thoughts.

“You,” she said, in a low, tense voice, “you have been well paid.” She

rose, shaking. “Get you gone with your reward--one by one you have

come to me demanding your price and I have paid it--but enough, by

God, enough--you will not make me a footstool to the throne, Conte

Raymond--I will hold it despite you all--do you think I shall go

unwed, that you may be my heir?”

He looked at her calmly. “What talk is this, Madonna--are you not

crowned to-day--the summit of your ambition?”

She caught eagerly at his words.

“Yes, yes,” she answered. She slipped into her chair again with a

desperate attempt at control. “I have all I have ever striven

for--surely I am content. Raymond,” she looked at him furtively, “you

have known me ever since I was a child--have I ever longed for

anything, or cared for anything save ambition?”

“No,” he answered.

She made a restless movement in her chair. “Well, well, I must bring

men from Provence--Venice, perhaps, might help me--there are many

faithful to me.” Her violet eyes shifted from side to side; she rose.

“That is all I have to say, Raymond.”

She stood stiffly, stooping a little, and her fingers worked in

uncontrolled fashion in her heavy gown. The Conte, only waiting her

permission to leave, turned to the door.

A little, quick sound from the Queen caused him to look back.

She had drawn herself erect, rigid, and her hands were at her throat,

tearing open the collar of her dress. She struggled with it fiercely,

until she had rent it apart over her bare neck and bosom.

“Raymond!” she said, in a stifling voice, as if invisible cords

pressed the breath out of her. “Why did you let him come to me?”

It was the first time she had spoken of it. Raymond de Cabane fell

back before her staring, inhuman eyes. “Why did you not lock your

door?” he answered hoarsely.

She dropped her hands from her throat. “How was I to know”--she

whispered quickly--“that it would take so long? You were fifteen to

one.”

“He fought like ten,” frowned Raymond.

The Queen came toward him, swaying as she walked. “What did you do

with him afterward?” she said, her eyes very bright and restless.

“Every time I have seen him since he has had no head--how could you

strangle him if he had no head?”

Raymond’s eyes shone fiercely.

“What have I to do with your fool’s talk----”

She began walking up and down with little, quick steps, like the

padding of an animal, looking at Raymond sideways. “I did not forget

anything--I rolled up the sheets and coverlets--I found a piece of

linen and rubbed the floor----”

“This is the way to madness,” cried Raymond roughly, yet with some awe

of her. “These are not things to talk of----”

She pulled herself up, looked at him a moment, then laughed quite

sanely.

“It is going to be over hot for my pageant,” she said, with a glance

at the blazing sun without. “We shall meet presently, Raymond.”

With some muttered words, he left her.

He thought, with a strange repulsion, of her slender girlish figure,

her strange containment, her little, secretive movements; the white

face, the violet eyes, the sudden, wild words, spoken so quietly, the

desperate clutching at her throat--well, if she were crazed, the

easier for him. Naples would owe small allegiance to a madwoman.

But when she appeared upon the castle steps, with her nobles about

her, to take the head of her procession, there seemed no touch of

wildness or insanity in her regal demeanor; she was elate, joyous and

beautiful. The gold and scarlet, blue and crimson of her dress and

mantle were vivid against her white palfrey. A canopy of noir and

samite was upheld over her by four nobles in purple, and ten ladies

went before her, scattering flowers. It was said afterward that never

had a city been so magnificent as was this city on the coronation of a

penniless Queen. From end to end the houses were hung with

embroideries and garlands, many prepared for the crowning of the King,

but used as readily by a careless, gay people in honor of Giovanna.

The streets were lined with troops, that silenced with the spear-head

such as muttered the name of Andreas. The trumpet and the drum drowned

the grumble of discontent that now and then arose at the reckless

profusion of the pageantry that flashed through sunlit Naples. Between

palaces set amid palms and roses, under heavy standards that dared the

vivid sky, past glimpses of the bay and distant blue-green islands, to

the accompaniment of triumphant music, very gorgeously they came to

the Church of San Gonnaro, whose gilt, bronze doors were flung wide to

receive them.

Maria d’Anjou, pale and fair in red and purple, the princes of the

blood in flaring brilliancy, the nobles and officers of the Kingdom,

followed the last monarch of the Angevin Kings into the dark and holy

church.

With an unfaltering step and steady eyes, Giovanna d’Anjou walked down

the aisle amid the dim splendors of religion, toward the porphyry

altar, where the priests, in splendid vestments, awaited her.

Her flaming royal garments burned in the somber silence. Amid the

quiet arches was the tomb of Charles Martel, and she looked at it as

she passed. Near it was a newer grave, with the mortar that fastened

the stones on what lay beneath scarcely dry. Andreas of Hungary lay

there; bright blue eyes, bright yellow hair, and gay, laughing youth,

mangled clay now in the vaults beneath.

Giovanna came to the altar.

Did she think of him as she mounted the marble steps to receive her

crown, did she feel that clutch at her dress? Did she hear that cry:

“Giovanna--don’t let them in?” Did she picture him as he lay in the

vaults beneath in his bloody shroud, almost as close to her as he

would have been had he stood beside her as the King? Did there arise

before her the thought of that long, gray dawn when she had wiped his

blood from her chamber floor and rolled up, with guilty fingers, the

horrid evidence of her bed coverlets?

The crowd that filled the church saw her head upheld on her slender

neck proudly; saw her step up to the glittering glories of the altar,

and sink on her knees on the embroidered cushion placed for her.

Her demeanor was calm. Only once she looked round, as if she saw

someone kneeling beside her, there in the empty place where the King

should have been. High, victorious singing rose from the gilded choir;

the gorgeous courtiers fell away to right and left; the Queen was

alone on the altar steps, her trailing mantles falling heavily on the

marble, her hands clasped, her auburn hair coiled on her white neck.

Ugolino, Bishop of Castella, his robes blazing in the candlelight,

stood beside the altar; beside him knelt the Lord of Brindisi, bearing

the crown of the Angevin Kings on a tasseled cushion; round-faced

acolytes in white swung censers, from which the cloudy perfume arose.

Motionless, the Queen waited; she raised her eyes, and altar, lights

and rich garments, the twisted porphyry pillars, the scarlet angel in

the colored window, seemed to dance and reel together through the slow

smoke of the incense.

She pressed her hands tightly on her breast. Her throat quivered, and

her lips were drawn painfully. She repeated, in an expressionless

voice, the oath to the Pope, and swore fealty to the legate.

They put the great crown on her head.

“How heavy it is!” she said.

The Bishop of Castella blessed her; the singing swelled and grew in

triumph. Giovanna rose and gave her hand to Philip de Cavaillon, her

chancellor, who presented her to the assembled nobles.

She descended into the church, the crown shining above the soft waves

of her hair; they bent their heads in homage to her. She paused a

moment, as her ladies lifted her train and surveyed the throng.

Maria stood, with bent head, beside Raymond de Cabane, who, with

folded arms, watched the Queen. Behind him was Bertrand d’Artois,

glancing with furtive eyes toward the tomb of Andreas. The dark beauty

of Guilia di Terliggi shone beside the magnificence of her husband,

and her sister, Filippa da Morcane, stood next to Carlo di Durazzo,

the Queen’s cousin. Luigi of Taranto was close to the Queen, and

behind him the nobles glittered away into the shadows of the lofty

arches.

The Queen’s violet eyes flashed over them, then, with erect head and

steady step, she passed down the aisle of the church, the joy bells

pealing in her ears. She came out upon the cathedral steps, and the

burning blue air was shaken with the triumphal bells of three hundred

churches and the shouts of the soldiery and the populace.

The scent of the orange groves of Sorrento and Amalfi was wafted on

the breeze that greeted her as she stood in her splendor, framed by

the dark background of the noble bronze gates, looking on the people.

The standard of Anjou floated its lilies to the air from every

building, from every company of soldiers. The whole pageantry of pomp

was unfolded in mighty Naples. Giovanna d’Anjou, crowned and

beautiful, looked upon it, and the color flushed into her face.

She saw Maria, passive and vanquished; she saw the people acclaiming

her almost against their will; she had risen over the clamor of

factions. This was her perfect triumph: Queen of all Naples, Provence

and Jerusalem.

The sun had almost reached the height of the Heavens, and Giovanna was

moving down the cathedral steps to her palfrey, when a little, dusty

man, who limped as he ran, forced through the crowd, and cursing all

who would have questioned him, staggered, almost before any were aware

of his incongruous presence, on to the sunlit steps before the Queen.

He said, through dry lips, that he had ridden until his horse dropped,

from Foligno--he had a message from the lord commanding the garrison

there.

He held out a parchment to the Queen; then, with a sound like choking,

fell fainting at her feet.

“From Foligno!” murmured Giovanna. The nobles crowded about. She broke

the seal and read:

Ludovic of Hungary is at Foligno and marching on Naples with thirty

thousand men; Jerno has joined him and Aquila--he crosses the Volturno

to-morrow at Benevento to fall upon the capital.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE EXECUTIONS IN THE PALAZZO SAN ELIGIO

They were playing ball in the gardens of the Castel del Nuovo;

Giovanna would have it so. She walked up and down the paved path

watching them. There were not many left at the court of Naples.

Raymond de Cabane and Luigi of Taranto, with such Neapolitans as

remained faithful, had departed for Capua to dispute the passage of

the Volturno with the Hungarians, and all implicated in the murder of

Andreas lay in prison, by virtue of a bull from the Pope, sent to

Bertrand des Beaux, Chief Judge of the Kingdom of Naples.

Therefore there were not many playing, and these few had pale faces

and shaking hands; yet, because of Giovanna, they tossed the silk ball

to and fro and strove to laugh.

With her head hanging, and her hands clasped high on her bosom, the

Queen passed through the light and shade. She thought of the unpaid

mercenaries deserting by the hundreds, pillaging the Kingdom on their

way to the Hungarian camp: the magistrates, the guilds, the common

people clamoring for Ludovic of Hungary; her sister praying for the

success of her enemies. She thought of her accomplices, whom she had

delivered to Pope and people, and she crushed tighter a parchment

under her hands.

It was the petition of the fifteen and their wives, their appeal to

her to save them. She paused to watch the yellow ball fly across the

blue and green and fall on the sward at Cleopatra di Perlucchi’s feet.

The Conte Raymond’s sisters were among those to die to-day, to perish

on the Palazzo San Eligio for the murder of Andreas of Hungary.

Save them? It was too late! To keep her Kingdom she had sacrificed her

confederates. She, also, had demanded vengeance on her husband’s

murderers to save her credit with the world. She had done everything.

All her plate and personal property was pledged to the Lombards; she

had sent messages to Sicily and Provence; she had written to the Pope

and to Ludovic of Hungary--she recounted these things to herself

feverishly--had she not done everything?

The light ball was tossed to and fro; the courtiers ran hither and

thither; the Queen paced up and down.

Suddenly she stopped.

The bell of Santa Chiara had begun to toll.

Slowly she went back to the palace, and when she had gone they ceased

throwing the ball, and the beautiful Cleopatra began to sob for those

being now led forth to death.

In the hall the Queen found Bertrand des Beaux, Conte di Monte

Scaglioso, with a somber retinue of mailed men.

“I am on my way to attend these executions,” he said. “Madonna, may I

speak to ye?”

The tolling vibrated throughout the long hall. Giovanna crumpled the

parchment in her hands.

“Speak,” she said.

They stepped apart from the others. He pointed to a chair, but she

could not sit.

“I have little time,” he said. “I must soon be at the Palazzo San

Eligio, but I could not get to the Palace before. Madonna, I stand for

the Pope.”

She lifted her head dumbly. Her hand was keeping time to the tolling,

by beating against the wall.

“Madonna,” said Bertrand des Beaux, “they might speak--have ye thought

of that? Remember, they have been trusting in you to save them.”

“I cannot,” she answered wildly. “Ye of all men know I cannot.”

“It were wiser not to essay it, Madonna.” He lowered his voice.

“Nicolo de Melaggo, the notary, has confessed everything--yet

mentioned the name of no royal prince.”

“Ah!” He saw her throat quiver.

“It is not the desire of the Pope that any of the House of Anjou be

implicated,” said des Beaux, “yet it is thought that some one of

higher rank than any of these----”

“Stop!” The Queen spoke steadily. “Do ye suspect my cousins?”

He looked at her keenly.

“I have thought it well to silence the prisoners.”

A pause, filled with the somber tolling, then Giovanna whispered:

“How?”

“By a slit tongue, Madonna, that they may not speak to-day. I have

thrust a fish-hook----”

The color swept over the Queen’s face and neck.

“Keep these horrors from me!” she cried passionately.

He bent his head.

“I thought ye would care to know that none of them will ever speak

again.”

She put out her hand to dismiss him, and with the other caught the

arras on the wall; then, as he was turning away, she called him back.

Her wild and distraught demeanor, her half-stifled voice caused him to

stare curiously.

“My lord, my lord, my good lord,” she said, “cannot ye save the women?

God wot they are innocent----”

“The confession involved them, Madonna,” he half smiled.

“Guilia di Terliggi is only nineteen,” she answered desperately.

“Ye cannot save her.”

“Am I the Queen and have so little power?” exclaimed Giovanna. “Have

ye forgot these ladies are the sisters of the Conte Raymond, my

sister’s betrothed, my captain, fighting for me now at Capuna?”

“Madonna, the Conte, on his return to Naples, will have the matter of

his own guilt to discuss.” He turned away, and the train of men went

from the hall.

The Queen stood still a moment, listening to the tolling. So, they

would never speak again. She was safe. There was only Raymond left--if

she could have saved the women----

There were very few in the Palace. She crept up to her dreary bedroom

and tried to find Sancia, but the tirewoman was not there. All the

maids and ladies were scattered. Wearily she went to the window and

set it open.

A great roar met her ears. The shout of many voices, such as had

sounded when Raymond de Cabane had taken her hand and proclaimed her

Queen from this very window--the yell now of the crowd greeting its

prey as the prison doors swung back and the victims came forth to

their death. Her brow grew damp with anguish; her fingers clutched the

window frame. The roar of the crowd swelled in volume; her too quick

brain pictured the ghastly procession, the yelling people, the

immovable soldiers, the prisoners--she did not dare to think of the

prisoners.

A long while she stood immovable, the sunshine and the breeze filling

the chamber and caressing her haggard face. Then she threw herself

along the floor and put her hands up to her throat and moaned

bitterly. Sancia, creeping into the chamber, with her fingers over her

ears to shut out the sound of the bells, crouched back in horror to

see the rich red robe, the auburn hair, low on the ground.

The Queen looked up.

“I heard Guilia di Terliggi shriek,” she muttered. “I heard her

shriek.”

Sancia began to flutter with sobs of terror. “God have mercy on us!”

she wailed. “It is too far--ye could not hear----”

Giovanna gave a sudden wild smile.

“And her tongue is pierced,” she said hollowly. “So they cannot

speak--so I fancied it.” She clasped her hands round her knees and sat

so, huddled up, and her lips moved as if she counted the tolling of

the bells of Santa Chiara.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

THE QUEEN’S LAST STAKE

Giovanna stared at her answer from Ludovic of Hungary.

She broke the seal, bearing his arms, and unfolded the parchment.

A strange sensation came over her. The brother of Andreas, what manner

of man was he, her conqueror?

There were only a few lines, all in the same hand:

The exclusive power you arrogated to yourself in the Kingdom, the

insolence with which you treated the King, the favor which you have

shown to his murderers, even to the extent of promising your sister,

our betrothed bride, to the most guilty, and your excuse itself, are

sufficient proofs of your having been an accomplice in your husband’s

death. Convince us of your innocence and we will cease to harass your

Kingdom; if you cannot do that, prepare to receive the full extent of

our vengeance.

The letter fluttered from the Queen’s hand to the ground. She fell

back in her chair, and her head sank on her bosom; her spirit fainted

within her. She made a movement with her hands as if she laid down the

sword and crown in sheer weariness. She could fight no more, she had

done everything, ruined herself to her very rings, given up her

friends, sided with the people, conceded to the magistrates, delivered

herself into the hands of the Lombard money lenders, humbled herself

to Provence, appealed to her enemy, and he, this man at her gates with

an ever growing army, he, with the support of Italy and her own

people, was going to brand her as a murderess.

There was nothing to be done. She had made a splendid stand against

sudden disaster, but in vain, there was nothing to be done.

With the resolution that was natural to her, she decided to fly at

once to Provence and to save her life if she could not her crown. She

had not any hope in Raymond de Cabane being able to arrest the

progress of the Hungarians, nor any faith in her people’s protection.

She sat quiet, revolving the scheme in abject weariness of soul. Maria

d’Anjou entered the room, and Giovanna, like a bruised snake whose

sting is dead, eyed her dully and made no movement.

There was an extraordinary air of elation and triumph about Maria. She

stepped lightly and the color was ever flushing up into her face. With

blue eyes alight with hope, she glanced at her sister.

“Why do you look so gay?” questioned the Queen in a passionless voice.

“Gay?--do I look gay?” answered Maria. “My heart is eased because my

lord of Hungary comes.”

She stood, leaning against the carved mantel shelf, her gorgeous head

upheld. The sunlight lay softly upon the folds of her pale yellow

dress.

“You are very glad of my downfall,” said Giovanna.

Maria lifted the chestnut curls from her brow and looked at the Queen.

“What have you ever been to me that I should weep? Yes, I am glad.”

Her face was wildly triumphant, her calm eyes scornful under her level

brows. “I always turned from you, Giovanna,” she said.

The Queen raised her head and sank her chin in her hand.

“As for your ally, Raymond,” said Maria sternly, “I would not give one

thought to him nor turn my head to save him, but you are of royal

blood and I would have you fly the vengeance that marches on Naples.”

“Ah--you would have me fly?” answered Giovanna with narrowed eyes. Her

own resolution sounded a different matter on another’s lips. She did

not say that she had decided to hurry to Provence.

“All the bloody executions that made the city hideous yesterday will

not save you,” said Maria. “This lord comes for vengeance.”

Giovanna raised her eyes.

“And you?”

“I am his promised wife,” answered her sister proudly. “I shall stay

to welcome him.”

The Queen made a little movement in her chair. “Ah, you sent for him,”

she said quietly. “You wrote to the Pope.”

“Yes,” said Maria.

Giovanna’s eyes shifted from side to side with a cunning light in

them.

“Let us be at a plain understanding--you advise me to flee from this

brother of Andreas?”

“The conqueror of your Kingdom,” amended Maria.

The Queen sat upright.

“Do you believe I am guilty of my husband’s death?” she asked quickly.

Her sister did not answer.

“Do you believe so?” repeated the Queen.

“I know it,” said Maria hoarsely.

A deeper pallor overspread Giovanna’s drawn features.

“You do not know it and you cannot prove it,” she said under her

breath. “And it is false.”

“You must persuade the King of Hungary of that,” flashed Maria. “And

you cannot--therefore as your wretched life is dear to you, leave

Naples before the day be out--go to Sicily--to Provence--but do not

stay here to await the coming of Ludovic of Hungary----”

“You come to tell me this?”

“For the sake of our kinship I come to tell you this.”

“Very well,” said the Queen with compressed lips. “You may go.”

Maria turned from the chamber in silence. As the door shut Giovanna’s

hands clutched the chair arms and her eyes unclosed.

All the spirit that had been dead in her at Maria’s entrance was

roused now, in arms.

Should she vacate her throne that her sister might step into

it--should all her strivings end in this--that Maria, as Ludovic’s

wife, should succeed to her crown--was she a thing so easily overawed

that they could frighten her from her Kingdom? Maria’s triumph,

Maria’s joy at deliverance, Maria’s pride in her victorious lord had

been as so many lashes to drive her from her resolution of quitting

Naples.

Even if the army and the people had forsaken her, even if she had

neither money nor men, she had herself; her own kingly courage, her

own strong ambition, her own crafty policy, her own beauty and youth.

She picked up Ludovic’s letter from the floor:

“If you can prove your innocence.”

If! Her blood surged hotly to her heart. If she could make the man

believe in her, even now her enemy might be turned into her champion;

she might preserve not her life alone, but her fame and her Kingdom.

And who was Ludovic of Hungary that he should not believe in her. He

was a man and young, she was a woman and beautiful, she had all the

Southern guile. He would show himself a boor and a simpleton as all

his countrymen.

Ah, she would not abandon everything until she had staked all once

more. She had nothing to lose but her life, and she would rather risk

that like a prodigal in an attempt to gain her old glories, than hoard

it like a miser in misery.

She called Sancia and sent her in search of Carlo, almost the only

person of rank remaining in the Palace. While she waited for him a

message came to her from Bertrand des Beaux, who informed her that

Luigi of Taranto had been defeated by the Hungarians at Capua, and

that the victorious army was marching on Aversa and Capua; he added

that the magistrates and guilds had decided to open the gates of

Naples to Ludovic, and repeated Maria’s counsel of flight from the

Kingdom.

Giovanna was hardly moved. It was what she had expected; it only

confirmed her in her resolution. She waited with impatience for Carlo

di Durazzo. He came at last. He had seen Guilia di Terliggi hanged

yesterday, and in consequence was gloomy. He had wavered for days past

between the Queen and Ludovic, as she well knew, but she needed him

now.

“Carlo,” she said kindly. “Carlo--why have you not been to see me?”

He seated himself listlessly against the wall and began playing with

the tassels on his boot. “I went to see the executions yesterday,” he

answered. “And it made me sick.”

The Queen’s face darkened.

“Do not talk to me of that, cousin.”

He raised a fretful, pale face. “What do you wish to talk of,

Madonna?”

Her slender fingers folded up the two letters on the knees of her gray

gown. With intent eyes she studied the Duke’s face.

“Carlo--I am going to have one more throw with fortune, and I shall

need your help.”

He gave a bitter little laugh.

“I am a ruined man----”

She interrupted. “I am not asking for gold or men--that is

hopeless----”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“What else will be of any use?”

“My wits, perchance,” her violet eyes flashed one quick glance at him.

“Cousin, I am going to Ludovic of Hungary’s camp to see him--I desire

that you come with me.”

“Sweet saints!” The Duke lifted his eyebrows languidly.

“Carlo,” she pursued eagerly. “Do not argue with me or say I have lost

my wits--it is the sole thing for me--let me but convince that man,”

she broke off sharply, “it shall not involve you, cousin--the King is

near Aversa,” she spoke the word without a shudder--“I will travel

to-morrow morning and be back ere nightfall.”

“If he allow you to return at all,” answered Durazzo dryly.

“I am chancing that,” she breathed. “It is all or nothing. If he

should refuse to believe me, to end that way would be better than

exile in some Provence chateau with a blasted name.”

Her fingers moved nervously and her eyes flashed recklessly. Carlo di

Durazzo, weak and careless, but no fool, saw well enough her motive in

this desperate move. It was clear to him that in putting herself at

Ludovic’s mercy, she disarmed him to a great extent; that if anything

could convince him of her innocence, she herself, coming alone to him

with violet eyes, soft voice, and red mouth for her advocates, would

do it. And as the Duke believed in his heart she was guiltless, he

could conceive that she might persuade Ludovic. Then, too, it was an

adventure with a hint of knight errantry in it and danger that made a

fine distraction to his thoughts of Guilia di Terliggi; it was

flattering also that she trusted him.

As he considered these things the Queen watched him with burning eyes;

her lips trembled and her hands were locked tightly together.

“Well,” he said at last, “it is a desperate strait and a desperate

expedient--but I will go with you, Madonna.”

She rose and laid her hand on his arm. Her glance was eloquent of

gratitude. Then she turned in silence to the window. All the tangled

glories of her race, standards of victory, wreaths of a conqueror, the

trumpets of renown, the heralds of splendor and high greatness, seemed

gathered into her slight figure and her royal eyes, the disasters, the

triumphs, the magnificence of a line of kings were embodied in her

still resolve.

“Desperate,” she said softly, as if she had been thinking over her

cousin’s last words. “Well, I think courage shows best in desperate

straits--’tis better bravery to go to this King even on a poor chance

than to wait here trembling before the inevitable.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

LUDOVIC THE TRIUMPHANT

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.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE CONTE RAYMOND PAYS

“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----”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE KING’S AVENGER

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.

The Count broke forth fiercely: “On the white witch who has so much

power--on the folly…” He strangled his words in his throat.

“You were better at home,” said the King unpleasantly. “You and I

shall not agree on this question--get back to Hungary.”

He turned the horse’s head and rode down the broad flagged path. When

he had passed through the gate he drew rein in the meadow, waiting for

his company. A vivid blue twilight encompassed him, the stars seemed

to float in the misty heavens, the poplar trees rose gray against this

blue, and in their upper leaves a continuous wind rustled. Above the

black convent a new moon swung in a wreath of white vapors, like a cut

pearl in foam.

Ludovic became aware of a girl coming toward him through the thick

grass. The dusky blue light caused her to appear dim yet luminous. She

bore a shapely jar on her shoulder; her hair made a dark heap on the

nape of her neck. She was singing to herself, but at sight of Ludovic

she paused and stared through the twilight.

“A soldier?” she said, and stepped nearer. “I have never seen any here

before, though I pass very often.” She laughed. “Did you come to see

where Andreas of Hungary was slain?”

Her abrupt mention of his brother caused the King to look at her

sharply. She was twirling a scarlet poppy between her white teeth. Her

brown dress, carelessly laced, showed her slender throat and

shoulders.

“What do you know of him?” asked Ludovic.

She laughed again sullenly. “I hope the Hungarians will burn the

Queen,” she said. “Even as the others were burned.”

Then she looked up, saw Ludovic’s face and bearing, and,

half-overawed, turned away through the flowers.

But he called after her: “Why should they burn the Queen?”

“Because she is a witch,” came the answer, and the girl hurried out of

sight down the sloping fields.

Ludovic’s jaw set in iron lines of resolution. The more he was

confronted with popular opinion of the Queen, the more firmly was he

determined to abide by his own judgment.

He remembered her youth, her quiet, her most wonderful eyes, the

simplicity of her defense, most of all the manner in which she had

come to him, appealing to his justice, holding herself at his mercy,

abiding his sentence. In that he saw a magnificence of action

belonging only to regal innocence. She disdained alike proof and

protestation, she appealed to him as a Queen to a King.

His pride was most delicately flattered, his generosity most

delicately appealed to, his imagination most sweetly fired by violet

eyes and a fine hand that had put in his two vivid carnations. These

things were unknown to the crowd that defamed her, but between him and

her they were bonds and pledges of an understanding.

When his company joined him and they galloped over the fields toward

his camp, his thoughts dwelt on Raymond de Cabane, and all his wrath

and vengeance, suddenly dammed, turned aside from the Queen and

rebounded upon Conte d’Eboli. He was not of a cruel nature, but he

desired a hard death for the man who had murdered his brother.

Bitterly the slave should pay for the spilling of royal blood.

As they came to the camp a party of soldiers rode up. By the red,

ragged light of torches that flaunted the stars, Ludovic recognized in

the foremost rider the small features and amber curls of Carlo di

Durazzo.

The two men reined up simultaneously, and the Duke drew his cap from

his burnished hair.

“Fair lord, I come from the Queen,” he said in his lazy voice.

Ludovic spurred his horse forward.

“My cousin of Durazzo?” He held out his hand. The Duke was free from

even suspicion of complicity in the murder of Andreas. The King

desired to show he knew this, and his voice was warm.

Carlo di Durazzo glanced into the proud smiling face the torchlight

showed, and his own was dull. He could not refuse his hand, but he

gave it coldly.

“They make gallant preparations for your entry into Naples,” he said

indifferently. “The Queen sends you her duty--Madonna Maria all

fitting greeting.”

His careless tone became almost a sneer. Ludovic, quick to see and to

resent even a touch of his own pride in any other man, turned haughty

eyes on the cousin who had not responded to his condescension. But

Carlo only laughed, and turned in his saddle.

“Bring the Queen’s gift,” he said over his shoulder, then he faced the

King again. “Giovanna rejoices at your coming,” he added.

The remark was pointed and Ludovic replied to the meaning.

“And is not my cousin Maria glad?” he asked, though he had never

thought of his betrothed since he set foot in Italy.

Carlo eyed him defiantly, hating his pride, his beauty, his splendor,

thinking with a strange pang of Maria’s blue eyes and sad, fair face.

“As to that I know not,” he answered. “Some think she has forgotten to

do aught but weep.”

A man-at-arms in blue and purple stepped from the ranks and came up to

the two leaders. Carlo drew back his great white horse. The soldier

went on one knee before the King of Hungary.

“Hold the torches higher, varlet,” commanded the Duke.

Ludovic looked down upon a kneeling man holding a scarlet cushion

covered with a gold cloth.

“The Queen’s gift,” said Carlo. A pikeman drew off the cloth. The

smoky torchlight revealed a hideous head, swollen, discolored, with

blood-stained lips and eyes, lying on the scarlet cushion.

“Raymond de Cabane,” said the pikeman, and lifted the head by the

coarse black hair.

Ludovic stared into the dead face of the man he had vowed to kill. So

she had kept her word--in this fashion.

“Why did she send him to me dead?” he demanded sternly. “I did not ask

it.”

“Never could he have been brought alive,” said Carlo. “He was a mighty

fighter.”

In the red torchlight the defaced features appeared to contort with

devilish life. Ludovic, gazing at them, thought: “And I had thought to

question him.”

The lifeless face mocked him. Neither fear of Hell nor hope of Heaven,

not the most fearful of torments, could wring from the Conte Raymond

now the name of his accomplices. Those cold lips held forever the

secret of the Queen’s guilt or innocence.

In a measure Ludovic felt balked of his vengeance. He could not punish

the dead, nay, nor triumph over this disfigured flesh. He could extort

nothing from Raymond de Cabane.

The flaring yellow lights staining the purple twilight and revealing

the sharp glitter of armor and spear, the horses’ shining flanks, and

the men’s faces hidden in the shade of their helms, flickered over the

head of Raymond de Cabane and the dark splendor of the King’s face and

throat above the gold collar of his mail.

“Take away that carrion,” he said gloomily, “I am cheated of my

revenge.”

He rode away without a word to the Italians, and they could hear the

soft clank of his harness as he spurred into the purple darkness.

“Think you Maria will favor him?” asked Carlo softly, leaning toward

Luigi of Taranto.

That warrior pushed back his red hair.

“Any woman would,” he answered.

Carlo di Durazzo leaned from his horse and looked at the head,

replaced now on the scarlet cushion. Sharp blue shadows lay on it; the

grinning teeth showed behind a film of blood; on the wrinkled forehead

were dull brown stains.

“They have all paid now,” he thought, “unless Giovanna--” He checked

his thoughts and glanced up at the great soft stars.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE QUEEN WINS

Maria d’Anjou accepted it silently. She did not rail or complain.

Through the tangled life of the palace she moved quietly, with

apparent little heed of what passed about her.

Giovanna’s triumph had been her defeat. The Queen had snatched herself

from ruin by winning in an amazing fashion the man to whom Maria was

looking for vengeance, justice, and escape. Raymond de Cabane’s death

had filled her with more disgust than relief. She stood aside,

watching her sister spin her nets and set them, and felt herself as

helpless as ever she had done in the old days. At times Sancia di

Renato came and wept on her breast, but Maria was too weary for tears.

The long-prayed-for deliverance was at hand. Ludovic of Hungary was

coming to Naples, but not for her, for Giovanna’s lures.

She listened in secret misery to the Queen’s elated talk of him; heard

her praise his courtesy, his voice, even his face; heard her boast how

he had put aside all slanders and old calumnies at her mere word, and

how he was to enter Naples as her friend and ally.

He would keep her on her throne, this man who had come to hurl her

from it. He would chastise her insolent subjects, and the woman who

was his promised wife listened silently.

She had always woven vague hopes and dreams round the King of Hungary.

When she was a child she had been taught to regard him as her future

lord, and through all the storms and intrigues that had held them

apart, her lonely soul had remained constant to his image. She had

dreamed of the day when she might go to him, to a strange land that

yet would be home. She had been loyal to him in every thought. In her

bitterest need she had appealed to him, and now he was coming, her

knight, and Giovanna had snatched him from her to serve her own pride

and ambition.

Sometimes she thought of him with contempt. What manner of man was he

to be so easily persuaded? What love had he for Andreas that he was

satisfied so soon?

She tortured herself with doubts of him, scorn of him, and of his

blindness, his weakness, while she listened to every word spoken of

him and strove to picture to herself this unseen lord of hers.

And on the morning of the day he was to enter Naples, Giovanna, pale

with triumph, came to her in her lonely little room.

Maria sat on the end of her bed, her bare arms loosely clasped round

the carved post that her chin and her twisted fingers rested on. She

wore a flowing red dress open at the throat that appeared to mingle

with her unbound chestnut locks, so nearly was it of the same hue. Her

eyes, blue as the bay that showed through the open window, were sad

and steady beneath her level brows. Giovanna came in silence into the

room, and went to the window where the early sunlight glimmered over

her from head to foot. She had not spoken alone with her sister since

the night of the King’s death, nor made any attempt to seek her out,

but Maria showed no surprise nor moved from her still position.

Giovanna was superbly dressed in orange velvet stiff with golden

embroidery, but she wore no jewels. Though the castle of Bertrand

d’Artois had yielded some treasure to the impoverished court, it had

not been sufficient to redeem her gems from the Lombards.

She gave Maria a quick glance out of narrow bright eyes and moistened

her palely scarlet lips. “Listen,” she said. “Ludovic of Hungary comes

here to-day--you know?”

The beautiful face and the still hands did not alter or move.

“Well, well,” said the Queen quickly. “Why are you silent? What more

do you desire? Raymond de Cabane is dead--ye are to be the wife of

Ludovic--did ye not always wish it?”

Her fine fingers played restlessly on the stone window frame. Still

Maria did not speak.

Giovanna stared at her sister’s face, pearl white in the waving

burnished hair, and her own took on a strange look.

“Why of two such men did they give me the blundering boy?” she spoke

between quick breaths. “You are very fortunate. Ludovic is a man and

King--” She changed her tone. “Come,” she said sharply, “why do you

not dress yourself and make ready to meet him?”

Maria was silent.

The Queen, as if some wild impatience had caught her soul, stepped up

to her sister and seized her by the shoulder.

“Will you not speak to me?” she asked viciously.

“Why am I to endure your proud mockery?” The calm, fair face changed

swiftly. Maria sprang up, wrenched herself free, and drew back to the

farthest wall.

“You shall not touch me,” she whispered. She shook back the red hair,

and the red dress and her white face and throat gleamed in the dusky

corner. Her voice came hoarsely. “And you will keep yourself away from

me--if Ludovic of Hungary,” she panted over the name, “is to be my

lord, you and he must not--ah!--I am not your puppet, Giovanna.” She

clasped her hands fiercely. “And I tell you that if this man is coming

to your lures he gets none of me--no! he chooses between us--if he

believes you, trusts his brother’s widow--his brother’s--” She caught

back the word, but her passionate blue eyes shone with undaunted fire.

“I say he gets none of me,” she repeated. “I will be the wife of no

man you have in your toils.”