great coil of auburn hair in the nape of her neck and the gold threads
in her stiff orange gown.
“How wildly you speak!” she answered quietly. “Why, what is Ludovic of
Hungary to me?” She lifted long, evil eyes. “And what should I be to
him--seeing you are his betrothed wife?” She laughed noiselessly,
bunching her shoulders to her ears where the snaky curls clustered.
“Are you afraid of losing him--with that face?” she sneered. “With
your pure life and your pure beauty and your rich dowry, are you
afraid of me, who am old ere I am young, faded ere I have
bloomed--spoiled and tarnished and broken?”
Her voice sank, she seated herself on the end of the bed, huddled
together, and flung her arms up over her face.
“Ruined!” she wailed. “Broken, body and soul--old--yes, I am old,
Maria, and my heart is stunned, bruised, and dying.”
She sank face downward on the red coverlet and sobbed wildly, pressing
her hands to her forehead.
Maria came from the corner and gazed at her, but with no softening in
her face. Fair and cold and pitiless she watched the heaving shoulders
and bowed head.
At last Giovanna lifted her head, with her fine hair tumbled to her
gold-girdled waist and her eyes wild and red.
“No man will look on me with love,” she said fiercely. “I am damaged
goods, though I am on the market. God wot, there are ugly things said
of me even loyalty cannot be deaf to, and things believed a saint
could not live down--you need not be afraid of me, Maria----”
Her sister answered:
“I am afraid of nothing. But witches and evil things have gained of
times the love of honest men.”
Giovanna laughed miserably.
“Do you think I have bewitched him, this Ludovic of yours? What do I
want with him? He is no finer knight than Luigi of Taranto, whom I
might have by lifting my hand----”
Maria spoke scornfully:
“Well ye wot he is a King, and ye are in his power--what could Luigi
of Taranto do for ye that this man could?”
The Queen raised her head. Her tear-stained face wore a look of
cunning.
“So you think I am coming between your lord and you--you are jealous
of me--you are not very sure of that maiden’s face of yours--well,
well.” Her sharp little tongue passed over her lips. She rose with her
hands in her fallen hair. “Perhaps I shall try to turn him to my
purposes, Maria--but you who are so much the fairer have the greater
chance.”
She smiled mockingly and tapped her little foot on the floor. Maria
turned her face away with a sound of loathing.
“You and I have naught but hate in common,” she said. “Your insult
does not hurt.”
Giovanna’s changes of mood had grown bewilderingly quick of late. She
laughed now, freshly, and spoke in a light mockery: “Change your gown,
Maria; I tell you he is not the man to admire beauty in a simple
dress.”
The slow color came into Maria’s averted face. “Be assured I do not
seek his admiration.”
Giovanna laughed again.
“As if you had not dreamed of him at nights these many months!”
Then there was the sound of her heavy dress on the floor and the click
of the latch. Maria, with a hotter red in burning cheeks, turned to
see her pass quietly into the corridor.
The door closed slowly.
Maria d’Anjou stood erect and stared at her own beauty in the mirror
that hung from her waist. Eyes and lips were scornful.
She scorned them both--the woman who was the deceiver, the man who was
deceived. Love! What did they know of it? She had her ideal of that
and a face fair enough to bring her dreams true.
She dropped the mirror.
Ludovic of Hungary! She had had her thoughts of him, but she would not
woo him now by one word, one look. Let this hope go as others had
gone--pricked bubbles.
There was the convent; there was the tomb waiting in Santa Chiara. She
thought of both with a grim pleasure. It would be pleasant to leave
proudly the world to which she had never been attuned; it would be
pleasant to lie at rest in the dim, rich church, leaving a fair memory
behind.
Presently she drew a little key from a ribbon round her neck and,
turning, opened her coffer and took out a casket from among her
fragrant clothes.
Slowly she turned the key; slowly she raised the lid.
There lay the auburn curl and the scrap of embroidery taken from the
King’s dead hand, his own stained locks, his unfinished letter to his
brother, the snapped chain with its trinkets.
“How if I were to show you these, my lord of Hungary?” she asked
bitterly. “What would you think of her innocence?”
Was he so weak a man that Giovanna’s witch face and slow-glancing,
bright eyes could overweigh with him proofs like this?
As she locked them away again she wondered, and felt her blood grow
cold and her face hard with contempt. She had done with it all, she
said in her heart, she was aloof, apart from the world, she had
awakened from dreams of Ludovic of Hungary and was disdainful of
herself that she had ever set him in her thoughts.
In the wide, warm window seat, full in the gold and purple light of
early morning, she knelt and told her ivory beads. Even the streaming
sunshine could not bring animation or color into her quiet
countenance, though the stiff waves of hair turned back from her
smooth brow, and falling beside her curved cheeks shone like living
gold.
When she had finished her rosary she looked down at Naples lying in a
haze of heat with the shimmering bay beyond, and the purple coast line
of Sorrento and the vivid, blinding glitter of the square roofs set
amid the palms and cypress trees that threw blue shadows over the
white house fronts.
And as she gazed the bells of San Gonnaro and Santa Chiara burst into
a peal that rang over town and bay and was echoed swiftly by the
lesser churches.
Maria called to mind how, upon the entry of Andreas, these bells were
tolling for the old King’s death; and how, two months later, they had
tolled for him when his shapeless corpse was laid to rest beside the
altar where he should have been crowned.
And now his brother came to the sound of the joy peals, to meet in
friendship the woman--Maria checked her thought, even to herself she
could not frame the word that told the thing her sister was. She kept
her ghastly knowledge as close as Giovanna herself, a secret too
terrible to be put into words or even definite thought.
She put her hair into a purple silk net and fastened it with ruby
pins. Then, unsmiling and cold, she descended to the great hall.
There also she must think of Andreas; how here he had first set foot
in the palace; how here he had feasted his Hungarians. In this hall
had Giovanna held her mad masque; from here Guilia di Terliggi and
Filippa da Morcane had been dragged to death and torture.
The high gallery was hung with fine silk tapestries from France. The
ruby and topaz, amethyst and emerald hues of the window cast rays of
colored light across the dusky, scented atmosphere. Under the canopied
dais stood Giovanna, slender, stooping, with painted lips and long
brilliant eyes; hard color in her dress with its trailing embroideries
and in the orange ribbon binding the curling auburn hair. Against the
vivid texture of her gown her shoulders and arms showed a dead white
where the fantastic cut and laced sleeves revealed them; on her brow,
was the one jewel left to Naples--a low filigree gold crown.
About her stood the gorgeous Italian courtiers: Carlo di Durazzo, in
white and wine color; Bertrand gleaming in emerald green, Di Perlucchi
in pure scarlet, Luigi of Taranto in azure and silver. Behind the
Queen, noticeable among the ladies, showed the rose-hued beauty and
pale gold locks of Sancia di Renato. She was clad in a gown of
shifting mauve and violet. Her eyes lifted timidly to Maria, who came
silently and stood beside her. The rest of the hall was filled with
soldiers, servants and pages.
All were silent save Carlo and Di Perlucchi, who whispered together
slighting criticisms of the whole pageant. Disapproved of the Queen’s
dress, sneered at Ludovic of Hungary, and consoled each other’s
jealousy with bitter remarks and scornful laughter.
Once Giovanna looked at them sharply and frowned, but she did not
speak.
The doors were opened wide on to the steps, and a shaft of clear
sunlight fell across the floor and wall. Maria looked over the Queen’s
shoulder. She saw in the courtyard great banners bearing the double
eagles of Hungary; the hard glitter of spears, shining armor and the
gorgeous garments of pages and footmen.
The trumpets sounded, then were still. Shadows crossed the bar of
sunlight; the halberdiers guarding the entrance fell back. A man
stepped into the hall, then hesitated, confused by the dark after the
sunlight.
The Queen went a little forward to meet him and paused under the soft
violet light of one of the windows, Ludovic of Hungary saw her,
gleaming in jewel-like color, and strode up. His firm tread was the
one sound in the expectant assembly.
“My cousin,” murmured Giovanna.
He put his hand in hers and, slightly leaning forward, looked into her
face.
To each the other looked so different from the remembrance they had
that there was wonder in their eyes.
Ludovic was dressed with an ostentation of splendor. His heavy,
trailing purple mantle, thrown back, showed a gold and scarlet vest
stiff with gems. Round his black locks was a circlet, to which was
fastened at one side a large plume of peacocks’ feathers, after the
manner of the German knights. Different this from the man in the plain
mail who had spoken to her in the farm kitchen; different also was she
from the pale woman with loosened hair who had pleaded with him there.
The Queen was the first to speak:
“Welcome--in peace--to Naples, my lord the King.”
She withdrew her hand. There was a flash of jewels as he loosened his
sword from its gleaming case and held the bare blade between them. The
purple light ran down the steel and glimmered like a star on the
point.
“Naples and Hungary shall kiss the sword,” said Ludovic in his soft
voice. “Set your lips upon the blade, my cousin, the Queen.”
She lifted her stiff dress with cold, white hands and leaned forward.
Woman and sword dazzled together as she laid her lips to the hard
steel. One of her auburn curls fell across the handle. The King’s
intense eyes were always upon her, as if no one else was in the room.
Then, as she lifted her head, he leaned his dark face and kissed the
sword where she had kissed it.
The trumpets, with a mighty clamor, called witness to the pledge.
Ludovic of Hungary swung his sword, an arc of light, and sheathed it,
and again he gave his hand to the Queen and walked with her to the
dais.
The two princes of his own family, Carlo of Duras and Luigi of
Taranto, went on one knee to welcome them to Naples. Luigi he raised
and embraced; Carlo he received haughtily, remembering that knight’s
demeanor at the camp.
Carlo now, as then, looked at him indifferently.
“Madonna Maria awaits you, Ludovic of Hungary,” he said, and looked to
where she stood in front of the gathered ladies.
At that Giovanna gazed musingly on the King. “Maria!” she said, and
held out her hand to her sister.
But Maria ignored it, and, stepping down from the dais, fronted the
King.
So did Maria d’Anjou come face to face with her long-promised husband
and the hero of her lonely thoughts. So, with cold heart and face, did
she know him, for all these thoughts had pictured him, among all men
there--the King.
As for him, her great, passionless beauty took him with a quick
surprise and pleasure, though her unmoved demeanor held neither
invitation nor welcome.
But Ludovic of Hungary was never at a loss with women.
“You and I should know each other by report,” he said, and smiled.
“Madonna--you have heard of me?”
Her great, blue eyes gazed at him straightly, breaking through the
lightness of his manner. “Has not my liege had letters from me that
prove I know him?” she said.
At this reference to his brother and the object of his coming, Ludovic
looked at her keenly. Here was different metal to Giovanna. She held
herself erect, without hint of fear or deference; rather as if she
judged and condemned him. He saw it and hardened, but merely said, in
that treacherous voice, that was a caress even when the words belied
it: “Come and kiss me, my wife that is to be--we have waited long for
this meeting.”
“Over-long, my liege,” answered Maria d’Anjou steadily, in a low voice
only he would hear, for the others had fallen back. “And my kisses
have spoiled with keeping.” She returned to her old place on the dais,
with a face marble pale, marble cold.
Her coldness stung Ludovic, effacing the impression her beauty had
made. He knew all eyes were upon them; he knew every one had heard his
words and gathered her refusal, if not her answer, and he was not a
man to take a repulse lightly or humbly from a woman. With a flush in
his face, he turned to Giovanna. Her long, narrow eyes, her rouged
lips, met his glance with a quiet smile. Maria’s beauty passed from
his mind beside the strange loveliness of her sister. As they
proceeded to the room where the feast was prepared, he had eyes for
the Queen and the Queen alone.
Carlo di Durazzo came beside Maria.
“Do you mark them?” he whispered.
Maria looked where the gilded blue-green of Ludovic’s plumes waved
beside her sister’s auburn curls, and she thought of the casket that
held one of those same curls, and put her hand over the key lying warm
in her bosom.
The gay and splendid crowd, Italians and Hungarians, followed the King
and Giovanna, but Maria heard a Hungarian whisper bitterly:
“Our King should remember Andreas--he came for the blood of this
wanton woman, not her smiles!”
CHAPTER TWENTY.
SANCIA DI RENATO
Above the bay, which was of a peculiar light pearl color, low,
dusky, yellowish clouds rolled, spreading slowly and obscuring the
pale, dazzling sky. Overhead, the sun burned in a white brilliancy,
changing the hue of everything into the dusty blaze of heat.
So hot it was, the slightest movement was an exertion, and a great
languor wrapped every living thing.
By the marble terrace in the garden, where the shriveled golden leaves
of the vines and the glossy green of the citron afforded spaces of
pale shadow, Maria d’Anjou sat on the low stone seat, her figure
leaning droopingly against the white balustrade.
At her feet, Carlo reclined along the marble flags and, resting
against the stem of the citron, looked up at her still beauty.
She gave no sign that she saw him. Her languid eyes were turned toward
the bay, her hands lay idle on her lap; the trembling shapes of the
vine leaves played in shadow over the warm ivory hue of her throat and
the glittering waves of her gorgeous hair. Her heavy breathing lifted
the gold borders on her breast steadily. Carlo put his hand out to
touch the shining hem of her crimson kirtle that swept the marble, and
felt his heart beat faster.
On his own purple habit the sun beat, and his shadow lay like a violet
stain on the flags.
Nearer rolled the dun-colored clouds. Slowly over the sun gathered a
veil, and the boats within the bay began to make for the shore. Carlo
gazed at Maria until cheek and heart were burning.
“Maria,” he said, in a low voice.
Her shadow stirred about him as she moved and turned the full depth of
her blue eyes on his expectancy.
“Know you where the Queen is?” whispered Carlo.
Languidly she answered:
“Yea, I do.”
Sun and shadow were becoming merged in one dusky golden color; the
doubles of leaves and tree waved heavily in faint yellow hues. A
little burning breeze from the bay stirred Maria’s dress.
“She is with Ludovic of Hungary,” said Carlo.
Slowly came her answer, as from heights of wearied calm.
“Has she not always been with him since he came to Naples a month
ago?”
Rage against the woman, contempt for the man, shook Carlo.
“And you endure it?”
“What else?” she answered, and the shrouded sun quivered over her
still, fair hands.
“Yet you are to be his Queen,” breathed Carlo.
“I am not made to woo, my cousin,” said Maria. “If a man cannot see
that I am fair and noble I will not follow him to prove my worth
before reluctant eyes.”
“The King is bewitched, or a fool,” said Carlo hotly.
But she answered placidly:
“He follows his fancy.”
Carlo pushed back the damp curls from his moist forehead.
“And if I followed mine--this King and I would come to the crossing of
swords.”
A faint glow shone in Maria’s still eyes.
“An’ I wanted a champion, cousin--” She fell on silence. The dusky
clouds eclipsed the fair sky and dulled the bright surface of the bay;
the trees bowed and trembled in the great heat. Maria held out a
steady hand to Carlo. His eager fingers clung to it, and he pressed
hot lips to her cool palm.
“Oh, let me be,” she said, with a tremor of tenderness in her voice.
“God wot, I will not see you slighted by Ludovic,” cried Carlo.
“I care not,” she answered. “If he finds no pleasure in my company, I
am happier alone--ah, the heat!” and her bosom heaved with her pants
for air.
Carlo held her slender fingers against his smooth cheek.
“It does not hurt you?” he asked breathlessly. “Maria, you have not
grown fond of this straying lord of yours?”
“’Tis no question of fondness either side,” she said; then she smiled.
“I once had thoughts of Ludovic of Hungary--I have amended them.”
She drew her hand away from Carlo, and he half resumed his lazy
manner.
“Do you know that he has redeemed the Queen’s jewels from the
Lombards?”
Maria gave a little start.
“Has he so forgotten Andreas?” she murmured.
“And he has paid her troops,” continued Carlo, “scornful of what they
say in Hungary.”
“Oh, Andreas!” repeated Maria.
Carlo laughed.
“He does not think of his brother when he sits by his brother’s wife.
By God’s might! I have thought of late that she is not so
innocent----”
Maria checked him with a low cry, and sat up, confronting him with
sparkling eyes.
“Do not think it,” she said hurriedly. “Do not breathe it. Would it
not be too awful a thing if--ah, Madonna!--if a man should come to
love his brother’s murderess?”
At the ring of horror in her voice, Carlo’s flushed cheek paled. She
went on, unheeding of him, while behind her the clouds gathered and
darkened over the bay.
“His kin--his blood,” she said. “What if she had planned the thing?
What if those hands he kisses Andreas had clung to in vain for pity?
What if she knew while she smiled on Ludovic that her soul was red
with his brother’s death? Ah, better for both that he should slay her
than love her--better his hate and punishment should purge her into
Paradise than her love woo him into Hell!”
She rose. At the same instant Carlo leaped to his feet.
“What do you know?” he cried.
She clung to the marble balustrade.
“Nothing!” she said. “Nothing--only I bid you chain your thoughts,
lest they grow wild and mad.”
Land, sea and sky were wrapped in the glowing yellow haze of the
oncoming thunder. Maria stood beneath the flame-hued vine leaves, and
her crimson dress blended with her vivid hair, while the gold on hem
and bosom glittered like living flame.
“I know nothing,” she repeated hoarsely. “What should I know?” Her
fine fingers touched his purple sleeve. “What matter is it of ours? I
think it is not our place to judge, though as surely as yonder storm
sweeps over the land, judgment will come--for all of us.”
Carlo thought of Guilia di Terliggi and shuddered. He stared at
Maria’s imperious beauty, and could not find words.
She spoke again, in a gentle voice:
“Will you leave me now, Carlo. I am coming in soon, but I pray you let
me be alone a little while----”
She could always command him. Still in silence, he left her.
There were no shadows now, but one great gloom over everything. The
waters of the bay had fallen treacherously smooth, and there was an
ominous stillness in the trees, as if they held themselves in
readiness for the oncoming shock of rain. Maria looked over the somber
prospect and thought of her lie to Carlo.
“I know nothing,” she had said, when she knew everything; when it
stared before her as a hideous fact day and night; when she carried on
her bosom the key of that casket--she had lied with her lips as she
lied every hour with her demeanor; lied with her speech as she had
lied with her silence.
But even now she might break from her stillness into a fury of revenge
and bring down Giovanna from her very height of triumph. It was in her
power. Yet something sealed her lips. Even to bring Ludovic to her
feet, even for the sake of that poor dead she could not bring herself
to be the instrument of vengeance. As she gazed into the wild sky, she
knew she would never speak.
Never! She stood aside from it all. She would wrap her bruised heart
in silence, and let God do as He would with Giovanna.
Then, as she stood there, the tears rose bitterly to her eyes; her
gorgeous head drooped. She shivered beneath the black and yellow
clouds and hid her face in her hands--and wept in a slow, sick
fashion. Oh, love and hope that beckoned from the land of dreams, and
at the first touch died! Oh, longing that is such a sharp agony and
loneliness, that is most miserable! Oh, my King, my idol, that has
broken at my feet!
For those things she wept, and behind the lurid lift of flame from
Vesuvius, the thunder gave the first roll, while the lightning sprang
from the clouds to the water.
That sharp pang of fire penetrated her locked hands. She looked up to
see the great mountain belching smoke, and the clouds rolling low upon
the bay.
A few drops of rain fell through the vine leaves, that were rustling
in a dry fashion above her head. She turned back toward the palace.
Again the thunder, sweeping nearer, and the lightning, like a rift in
the angry heavens, while about her pattered the rain on the leaves,
and the flowers bent and shivered.
As she gained the palace, she heard the unmistakable soft laugh of
Ludovic, and saw a group of people seated within the open, arcaded
balcony, that opened on to the garden.
Giovanna was there, glowing in scarlet through the shadows, with her
painted lips unsmiling, and her watchful, violet eyes on the
storm-swept garden. Ludovic was there, with the gilded colors of the
peacock feathers shining above the purple luster of his hair, and his
arm resting on the cushion behind the Queen.
And as Maria went in noiselessly at the open door, she heard him say:
“What if the boors do rise, Giovanna. Am I not master in Naples? God
wot, I will burn their city about their ears if they are not silent.”
Maria knew that the Neapolitans were rioting under the tyranny of the
Hungarian army that had settled in their city, and the King’s words
caused her to think upon it. Giovanna was holding her throne by aid of
the man who had come to shake her from it, but how long would it last?
How long would Hungary endure to be left kingless while Ludovic
delayed abroad?
She reached her little chamber, so darkened now with the storm she
could hardly see, and fell on her knees and prayed passionately, to
the accompaniment of the gathering thunder.
Oh, to be out of it all! To be at peace with Andreas in the sainted
quiet of Santa Chiara!
Presently she rose and brought out her casket. She would not speak,
and she would destroy these horrid proofs, so that there should be no
more temptation. In the ghastly light she opened the case and laid the
contents on her bed.
If Ludovic could read that last letter! If he could see these torn
curls, and that other lock drawn from the hand of the murdered
man--would he have so forgotten Andreas, that no wrath, no horror,
could be aroused?
With these thoughts, she hung over her poor relics of the dead King.
The sound of the lifted latch, a light step, caused her to start
violently. She had never reckoned on an interruption.
It was Sancia di Renato.
“I was alone in the Queen’s chamber,” she began, “and frightened of
the thunder----”
Then she came to the bed and saw what lay on it.
In a second, before Maria could speak or make any effort to conceal
what she was about, Sancia had seen.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, Mary’s might, the piece of the Queen’s gown!”
And she sunk on the edge of the bed and stared at the Princess.
With a trembling hand, Maria replaced the objects in the casket. A
clap of thunder shook the room, and the rain was driven in a sheet
against the narrow casement.
“What you have seen without my desire,” she said unsteadily, “by my
desire you will forget.”
But Sancia had seen enough. Her own suspicions, her own knowledge,
were confirmed.
“So you knew?” she gasped, dazed by the suddenness of the discovery.
“Where did you find--that----”
Maria rose.
“I know nothing, and you know nothing,” she answered. “What you may
have seen by breaking in on me--take it you have not seen.” She locked
the casket, replaced it in the coffer, and went to the window.
Sancia sat still, on the bed, silenced. She had the wit to encroach no
farther on the anger of the Princess, but also wit to gather the full
meaning of what she had seen.
Presently the stillness of the red-clad figure gazing out on the storm
frightened her. She slipped from the bed and crept up to Maria.
“Madonna,” she said timidly.
Maria d’Anjou looked down into the lovely face, and the color
overspread her own.
“What do you desire of me?” she asked.
Sancia smiled.
“May I talk with you?” she asked.
Obediently Maria seated herself in the stiff chair by the window and
rested her weary head against the wall. Sancia, in her soft, caressing
fashion, settled herself on a little stool at the side of the
Princess, where the stormy light from the casement fell over her
delicate loveliness.
Her skin was of the warm whiteness of a rose that is pink in the
heart. Her hair, pale gold color, supposed to show royal blood; her
eyes, infinitely soft, the hue of hazy summer skies. Intense
earnestness was in them as she gazed up at Maria; a deep and painful
color rose to her cheeks.
“Will you take me with you to Hungary?”
Maria could understand the request, but not the blush.
“Best go home, Sancia,” she answered mournfully.
“No,” said Sancia faintly. “Take me with you when you leave Naples.”
There was a pause while Maria thought of the slight chance there was
that she herself would ever see Hungary, and the thunder rolled
overhead. Then Sancia spoke again, in a still lower voice:
“When will you be married, Madonna?”
“When God wills,” answered Maria, and looked away.
“The last tournament,” said Sancia breathlessly. “Was it not
glorious--were you not proud of the King, Madonna?”
Maria was silent. She knew that Ludovic’s showy qualities, his
splendid horsemanship, his gorgeous clothes, his lavishness with
money, his beautiful voice, his singing, his dancing--all these
things, that made him the most magnificent knight in Naples, had their
effect with her, despite the calm showing of her judgment that they
were but the gilding of arrogant pride, and not in themselves noble.
She might despise herself for it, but she, also, had been moved by the
obvious graces that won the crowd.
Therefore she was silent.
“He threw the Prince of Taranto twice,” continued Sancia. “And
yesterday, when you were not there, he drove three horses round the
courtyard, mounted on the midmost----”
“He has princely accomplishments,” said Maria briefly. Her heart
winced to hear his praises; she kept her face away.
“Madonna,” came Sancia’s sweet voice. “Whom will the Queen marry?
Bitterly, I am afraid of her----”
“Hush!” cried Maria, turning round. “Be silent about these things,
even to your own heart. Oh, sweetheart, go home to Padua.”
Again Sancia’s face crimsoned from brow to chin.
“I would go with you to Hungary,” she pleaded.
“And leave your family and your country?” questioned Maria mournfully.
“Yea--so I might be with you.”
Maria suddenly caught her to her heart and kissed the fair face.
“When I am Ludovic’s Queen,” she said wildly, “we will speak of this
again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
THE QUEEN’S LOVER
“We have lost our way,” said Giovanna.
She came through the trees slowly, holding up the front of her long
green dress. The cool, rich leaves and moss were spangled with
sunlight, that flickered also over her hair as she moved.
King Ludovic paused and looked back at her.
“I never heeded the path,” he said.
“Nor I.” She frowned over her words, and they proceeded in silence.
It was hours since they had wandered from the gay encampment of the
hunting party, where the brilliant courtiers had sat round a feast,
spread on the shady grass, or roamed in couples through the trees, and
the sun was past the zenith.
Giovanna stopped, still with a frown on her delicate brows.
“I am tired, Ludovic.”
Everything about them was green, from the ferns at their feet to the
transparent beech leaves over their heads. The Queen’s gown, also of
that color, blended with the foliage, but Ludovic of Hungary was clad
in a blood-purple that blazed against it.
He looked at her sideways.
“There is a building of some fashion ahead,” he answered her, and
moved forward again down the soft glade.
Giovanna followed. He made no attempt to break her sudden silence.
They came upon the building he had discerned. It was a mere ruin.
Three slender Roman pillars of weather-stained marble, with the moss
green round the bases, the portion of a wall holding an empty niche,
and, adjoining this elegant ancient beauty, this defaced temple to
some old-world deity, a rude shed of wattled plaster, placed there in
a later age. This, also, had fallen into decay. Gaping walls and a
broken roof showed a wooden crucifix and a font for holy water, long
since dry, or filled only with the raindrops.
So the two dead temples jostled each other. The mud walls of the
Christian God leaning against the enduring shaft of the Pagan, both
peaceful in the lonely mellow sunshine; each grown alike with
maidenhair fern and the faint wood violets. They were over everything,
these violets, in such great clusters that they outnumbered the blades
of grass. Here and there, among the blue haze of color, arose the
dead-white flower of a narcissus, with the gold crown on its heart,
and under the crucifix twisted a blossomless brier rose, the long,
thorny stems covered in young spring green.
Giovanna, stooping and putting aside the flowers, disclosed a fallen
Jupiter, almost hidden in the grass.
She seated herself on his smooth pedestal, and smiled up at Ludovic.
“What have we been talking of this while?” she asked dreamily, and her
left hand drooped by her side among the violets, as if it trailed in
water.
“Of Kings and Queens,” answered Ludovic, his sweet voice suited to the
lonely loveliness of the spot and the once sacred ground on which they
stood, “of statecraft and wars and kingdoms.”
He leaned against one of the marble pillars, and its narrow shadow lay
over him and fell straightly to her feet.
“Of what is the quality of greatness?” she mused, and she turned from
the living King to gaze through the grass at the placid face of the
dead god.
Ludovic laughed.
“If one might know, Giovanna!”
“To rule,” she murmured, “always to rule--above the world--not of it.”
Her slight figure showed in fine lines through the straight gown. Her
white throat rose above a broad band of gold; round the turn of her
cheek hung the soft, shining auburn curls, escaping from their gilt
net. Suddenly she lifted those eyes, that were of a purple more deep
and wonderful than the violets, and stared into the King’s gazing
face.
“Why do you not return to Hungary?” she asked. “Why do you not take
your wife and go?”
“Why do we any of us linger in the pleasant places?” he answered, in
no way disconcerted by the sudden coldness of her tone.
A white butterfly darted between them, and settled on the Queen’s
hand.
“I think you must go,” she said, still gazing at him intently. “Can
there be two rulers in Naples, and none in Hungary?”
His bright color rose.
“Are you jealous of me, Giovanna?” he demanded.
She considered a moment.
“I am, perhaps, afraid of you--you have done too much for me.” She
trembled, and the white butterfly rose from her hand.
He knew as well as she that she and Naples both were in his power. He
smiled easily, and the clear hazel eyes sparkled behind the soft
lashes.
“You stay over-long,” she continued in a low voice. “People make a
talk of it--and in my own city I am not Queen----”
He lifted his splendid head, and the sun glittered down the peacock
feathers in his cap. “Maria is not so impatient,” he remarked.
“You will not consider her,” returned Giovanna. “She is the woman you
have always asked for--the wife you demanded of me.”
Ludovic suddenly moved toward her, trampling down the violets.
“Giovanna! Giovanna!” he said, his soft voice impatient. “Why will you
talk of these things?” He flung himself beside her on the fallen
statue. “Giovanna--you must understand me.”
He paused. She sat silent, with her clear profile toward him.
“God wot,” continued the King, “you are the most regal and proud woman
I have ever seen--you are a glorious thing, and had you not been
called my brother’s wife----”
A silence again, while the white butterfly fluttered over the violets.
Then Ludovic took her cold wrists and turned her round to face him. “I
think I love you,” he said, and laughed.
She stared at him, with no sign of discomposure or surprise. “I do not
understand,” she answered.
He laughed again.
“You have understood this month past, if you are a woman, and not a
witch.”
The blank look passed from her eyes as if by a great effort she forced
herself to comprehend.
“You love me?” she said slowly. Doubt and suspicion crossed her face.
Ludovic of Hungary waited for the moment he had resolved to enjoy
since he first saw the cold, young Queen; the moment when he,
invincible, in love as in arms, should see her, who had not turned her
head for any, tremble into confession, submission--a very woman, after
all.
But there was no response in her face. For an instant her eyes
narrowed with a look of calculation and cunning.
“Have you given me my Kingdom because you love me?” she murmured.
“Scarcely would you call it hate--or policy?” he whispered. His clasp
on her hands tightened, and her cold countenance flushed with some
feeling.
“And what else would you do for me?” she said breathlessly.
The dark, rich-colored face was brought nearer to hers; his voice
dropped, tempered to the most throbbing softness of passion:
“All that a man and a King may,” he answered.
For an instant her eyes shone with triumphant fire. Then her mood
clouded with discontent.
“How do you love me?” she demanded, in a voice almost scornful. “This
love is a strange thing.”
“Giovanna!” he answered, and the proud blood darkened in his cheek.
“Giovanna!”
She appeared to divine that his fiery arrogance was rising at her
coldness, and fell, though in a bewildered way, into excuses.
“God wot, my liege--this is no talk for us. I am the Queen. Maria----”
Ludovic interrupted. He held her hands down on the knees of her green
gown and spoke quickly. “Let Maria take her cold face into a convent.
Ye are the Queen, and as such I speak to ye--a King to a Queen--my
regal cousin, ye understand me?”
Her face was blank with the ignorance of a child, he thought she lured
him on, and he laughed.
“Come, little enchantress--teach me how they woo in Italy, since my
Hungarian fashion cannot move yet----”
Her hands strove under his.
“What do you mean--what do you mean?”
Fear and dislike were in her tone. She drew back stiffly, crushing
into the tall violets. The King’s mouth set in unpleasant lines of
hardness.
“What have ye meant these weeks I have been in Naples? Have I not done
great things for you--and to be flouted?”
She understood the covert threat as she had not the open love, and she
faced it as a thing familiar.
“Yes, yes.” Her great eyes widened. “Ye have done everything for me.”
She was silent a space, grasping a new idea; then, “this is the
price?” she said, and her hands became still in his grasp.
Ludovic of Hungary gazed at her curiously. “Do ye mock me, Giovanna?”
he asked.
Her smooth, oval face was passionless.
“What do you want of me?” she returned. “I do think you have bought me
by giving me my realm.”
He took his hands from hers.
“This is a strange wooing,” he said. “I think you are no woman----”
“Do I put it too plainly?” she asked, with brightening eyes. “I am not
quick at courtly speech----”
He bore down her words with sudden impatience in his soft voice.
“Giovanna--in one syllable--could ye love me?”
His breath was almost on her face. She could not escape his
magnificent presence, as he leaned on the fallen stone god toward her.
“Ye are a knight any woman might love,” she answered.
Baffled, he drew back a little.
“Ye practice a deft evasion,” he said. “But ye have no page to trifle
with. Hark to me!” he caught her arm, compelling her attention. “I,
Ludovic of Hungary, have said--I do think I love ye----”
With the cunning of the helpless, she sought to soothe him.
“Aye, give me a little time--I have never thought of those things.”
She put her hands to her forehead.
“Ye play with me!” cried the King. “And ye play with a man who will
not suffer it----”
He rose and turned from her.
Seeing his anger, the living fear sprang into her eyes. She thought of
her kingdom, what this man could do for her--what he had done and
might undo. After all, was not this what she had wanted?
“Ludovic!” she cried desperately.
He half turned, but would not move toward her. She sprang up,
stumbled, caught his arm and clung to it.
“Why--I love you,” she said in a low, terrified voice. “Do not turn
from me, my cousin--I will be very obedient----”
“Is this the truth at last?” he asked, with a hard little smile, “or
do ye seek to fool me?”
She closed her eyes and laid her white face against the purple of his
rich habit.
“Judge me mercifully,” she whispered, “for I am yours by all ways.”
The King looked down into her curious, fair face, pallid between the
auburn locks, and his feeling for her, fanned by the strangeness of
her reception of his wooing and her final complete submission, verged
almost on to the love he spoke of.
“Kiss me, Giovanna,” he said under his breath, yet imperiously.
She opened her eyes and lifted her face obediently, yet, when he bent
his head, she drew back sharply before his lips could touch hers.
Instantly she recovered herself.
“Never have any kissed me before,” she said, wild-eyed; “woman or
man.”
Ludovic smiled.
“Ye are a strange lady, and likely lie--yet if it be truth, I am not
displeased to be the first.”
As he spoke, he lightly kissed her cheek, almost before she was aware.
She stood still a moment, and such swift horror seized her that she
shrunk together like a blasted thing--one other had kissed
her--Andreas of Hungary, red with wounds, a few minutes before his
death. His words came back to her, blotting out the present:
“I could have killed you if I would--remember that afterward!”
The old, fearful consciousness of madness shook her. She groped, in a
dusky unreality of horror. The blood beat like drums in her ears, and
her limbs trembled.
“Mass! Are ye ill?” cried Ludovic of Hungary. He took her slim body in
his arms, and drew her frail weight on to his heart.
She struggled to regain a hold on herself, and half thrust him off.
“You and I as lovers!” she cried, and laughed deliriously.
He thought she referred to her sister.
“Why not?” he answered. “We are not as other people. We can mask it
with the rest, but afterward as King and Queen--and there are other
ways--the Pope.”
A little sound, like a small animal in pain, came sharply across his
words. He paused, looked round and saw nothing.
“A hawk hath found a prey,” he said.
But Giovanna had drawn away from him and was gazing toward the
shattered white pillars. There stood Sancia di Renato, the setting sun
illuminating her gentle loveliness.
The two women looked at each other across the space of violets. The
King alone was at his ease.
“Have ye come to search for us?” he asked. “God wot, we lost our way
some time since--the Queen and I.”
With his hand on his hip, he smiled at her, but Sancia di Renato
turned her face away.
“They have all missed you, my liege,” she said, and her fingers pulled
fiercely at the brier rose beside her. “They are behind me--the
rest----”
Ludovic, standing midway between her and the Queen, answered her with
a deepening smile and a little gleam in the hazel eyes behind the
thick, dusky lashes:
“You hurt your hand, Madonna--on the thorns.”
She swung round, her exquisite young face flushed from brow to chin.
“It is not my hand that--hurts.”
He marked her swiftly rising bosom, her soft, trembling mouth, her wet
eyes, her agitated voice, with an interested gaze.
Giovanna, a mute spectator, gazed at Sancia with vacant eyes and
troubled brows, and pulled at her slim fingers.
Behind them the sun was dazzling the color out of trees and flowers,
burning in the last blaze before its setting. Before them a slow
cavalcade was wending down the grassy paths toward the ruin, and
broken laughter, jangling bells and low voices came to the three in
the ancient temple.
Sancia di Renato turned away abruptly. Through the quivering leafage
Duke Carlo showed, leading the Queen’s white horse.
Ludovic laughed gayly, half at the Queen, half to himself.
But Giovanna kept her eyes on the ground and twisted her fingers
vacantly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
THE CASKET
Maria rose from her knees in her little chapel, stiff from praying.
The pointed west window glowed in the last glory of the sunset, and
patches of faint bright color lay over the stone altar and the smooth
stone flags.
Maria kissed her rosary and her psalter and laid them in her bosom;
then, with the calm step and composed face of a nun, opened the little
door that led into her bedchamber.
The place was full of shadows--about the canopied bed and the corners,
peaceful, and perfumed with incense from the chapel.
And leaning against one of the high dark chairs was Sancia di Renato.
Maria paused with a low sound of surprise, and Sancia lifted a
distorted face and slipped from the chair to her knees without a word.
The Princess’s heart turned sick with half-formed dreads and terrors.
The girl’s look of passionate misery, her attitude as she knelt there,
her disordered dress and hair, her silence, seemed omens of disaster
beyond bearing.
“What has happened?” she demanded. “God’s name, get up and speak to
me----”
She stooped, almost unconsciously, and caught the shrinking shoulder.
In a second supplicating arms were about her and a hot face pressed
against her bosom, while a passion of dry sobs shook Sancia.
Maria sat down weakly in the high-backed chair, the other clinging to
her.
“You have always been my friend,” came muffled from Sancia. “I--have
no one else.” Sobs again choked her; she shuddered throughout her
whole body with the force of them. Maria gazed at the pale golden head
and heaving shoulders, and her noble face grew pale with pity.
“Will you not tell it me?” she whispered.
Sancia sobbed out frantic incoherent words, clasping Maria’s arms
tightly in a kind of desperate weakness.
At last with an effort she lifted her head. “He said I had the
loveliest face in Italy!” she whispered. “He said--it was I--and only
I----”
“Who?” cried Maria, bewildered.
“He has broken my heart,” gasped Sancia, unheeding. “He swore false to
me--he kissed the Queen.”
“His name!” said Maria imperiously. “Who is it you speak of?”
But the tide of Sancia’s agony had burst beyond control.
“I love him,” she sobbed, “I adore him----”
Maria cried out sternly:
“You shall answer me--who is it?”
“Ludovic of Hungary!”
The Princess rose and tried to cast her off. “This to my face!” she
said proudly, and struggled to unlock the clinging hands, “to my face
that ye love the King!”
“All know he is naught to you,” answered Sancia wildly. “Nothing to
you--hardly have ye spoken together--but to me----”
“Come ye with these confidences to his betrothed?” demanded Maria. She
drew away sharply and Sancia, loosened from her hold, fell across the
chair.
“I have no other friend,” she said in a stifled voice. “But if it
please ye, cast me off--I will go----”
The Princess stood still and speechless, her blue eyes dark with pity
and passion, her hand clenched against the wooden ribbing of the wall
behind her.
Sancia half raised herself. Through the flush of her hot tears her
loveliness showed dazzling from her bright unbound hair to her white
interlocked fingers.
“Ye are like a statue of the Virgin,” she said hoarsely. “But I--who
am not holy--can ye blame me that I love him?”
Maria struggled for words, something of a bitter smile touched her
mouth; she turned her face away and was silent.
To her the moment was beyond speech, as her feelings were beyond
Sancia’s understanding. The soft, wailing voice continued: “Have pity
on me--I would I was dead! Have pity on me!”
Maria looked at her with a bright disdain; suddenly found her voice
and used it, steadily. “I do not blame you in this matter, Sancia,”
she said. “But tell me of it from the first--and what you said--of
the--Queen.”
Sancia, crouching at her feet, with her head against the chair,
whispered her story in the pauses of her heavy sobs. A pitiful story
as she told it in her grief, yet holding still some of the glory of a
first and passionate love, and full of the innocence of a childlike
soul.
She told how she had given her dreaming heart to Ludovic at first
sight of him, how he had read her adoration in her eyes and found each
day some intoxicating snatched moment to woo her in, how he had spoken
splendid wild things of what his first love would do for her, and how
she had believed it, trusting in him until to-day--to-day, when she
had seen the Queen in his arms and heard her words:
“You and I as lovers!”
Maria listened to the broken recital with a still face. Another smirch
on her one-time idol, another proof of the unworthiness of her hero.
Her thoughts flashed to Andreas lying in his tomb in San Gonnaro, and
her lips tightened.
“This man is not worth your tears!” she cried, stooping over Sancia.
“He has come to use Naples for his pleasure, making a mock of his
vengeance and a jest of his brother’s death--because we all lie in his
hand he plays with us as things below thought!”
“And the Queen?” gasped Sancia. “The Queen? He kissed the Queen--and
she is--Andreas was her husband--” The girl’s fine nostrils distended,
her lips whitened with fury. She rose stiffly from her knees.
“You know and I know,” she whispered intensely, “that it was his
brother’s murderess he caressed!”
“Stop!” commanded Maria. She flung her hand up over her face, and even
Sancia’s wrath was awed by her voice, her still figure.
“You have the proofs of it,” said Sancia in a weak tone. “Do you mean
to be always silent?”
Maria uncovered her eyes.
“You speak of what touches madness,” she answered under her breath.
“Listen to me--” she came a step forward and the girl cowered against
the bedpost. “We know nothing--either of us--I have said so before--do
you hear me?--do you understand me?”
“I know what I know,” breathed Sancia, clenching her hands. “I know
the white devil has enchanted him--I know where you found the fragment
of her gown--I know why she rises at night to look from the window
with her fingers at her throat----”
She paused, panting, and Maria laid a cold hand on her shoulder.
“Of none of these things will you speak to Ludovic of Hungary,” she
said steadily.
Sancia writhed beneath an authority she was not strong enough to
outface.
“Why?” she cried. “I want him to loathe the Queen as I loathe her--to
kill her as I would kill her if I could--why do you shield her--I came
to you for those things you have that damn her--will you not give them
to me? Will you not show them to the King? Why do you stand so
silent?”
“Because these things are in God’s hands,” said Maria in a low voice.
“And I cannot do what you ask.”
Sancia, baffled, mastered, broke into impotent sobbing, calling down
judgment on the Queen between her gasping breaths.
Neither had noticed that the room had grown nearly dark. Maria,
moving, saw that the window was a mere patch of dull light, and that
the sun had long set.
With unfeeling fingers she lit the little lamp beside her bed and the
tall candle on the table.
The small flame touched with gold her own incense-scented hair, and
cast a wavering shadow round Sancia’s disordered loveliness and palely
gleaming locks.
“God help thee,” said Maria compassionately. “For there is no aid save
in heaven----”
Sancia broke out:
“I will speak--I will speak,” and struck her hand on the bedpost. “For
I love him.”
A faint color came into the Princess’s face. “Ye do not think of me,”
she said quietly. “Of how I have stood aside--how I have nursed my
heart in secret--ye do not think that I have had my hopes and
dreams--perhaps--and you forget that I am the King’s promised wife.”
“But I,” cried Sancia with the selfishness of passion, “I love
him----”
“Then ye are more fortunate than I,” flashed Maria, “for I cannot love
him--nor any man--ye can cherish thoughts of him in a convent, but I
must feed an empty life with dreams.”
Sancia sobbed on.
“Aye,” continued Maria, walking slowly up and down, with her head held
disdainfully, “do what you can with your love while you have it--think
of it, weep over it. Ye are happier than those who cannot stoop to
it--but I--for me, there is another way.”
She paused beside Sancia. The lamp and candle threw cross shadows over
them.
“Get back to Padua,” she said.
“I cannot leave him,” murmured Sancia. “Madonna, I cannot!”
“You must,” said Maria, “or you will speak--and shall what I have
concealed in deep bitterness and prayer be revealed through your
jealousy? I say you shall leave Naples!”
“O Jesu!” moaned Sancia.
“Nay,” continued Maria in a softer tone. “It is the wiser thing for
your soul’s sake--and what is there for ye here but misery? Certainly
I will not marry this man, but he will not wed with you, and if you
love him there is but shame for you--therefore go home to Padua.”
Sancia was silent a great while, and Maria put her arms about her and
kissed her quietly. At which Sancia said in a faint voice:
“I will go home.”
“God be praised,” answered Maria trembling.
“And I will be silent.”
Maria kissed her again.
“Now let me rest upon your bed awhile,” pleaded Sancia. “For I am
heartbroken unto death, and this place is very peaceful.”
The Princess looked at her in a manner between shame and scorn.
“That ye should break your heart for him!”
The tearful eyes flashed with pride. “There is no knight more splendid
in the circle of the world--and I would give my heart again, nay, my
soul, that he might smile on me!” She turned away, sank face downward
on the pillows, and lay very still, save for the long shudders of
exhausted passion that shook her huddled figure.
Maria watched her for a little, then moved across the room and leaned
against the window, her head bowed, her hands slack.
Her strongest feeling was one of utter disdain for Sancia,
herself--for Ludovic of Hungary. She remembered the night of the
masquerade when she had prayed with such fervency for this man’s
coming; she remembered the golden pictures her fancy had drawn of him,
a hero saint, a stern avenger, a just man, a wise king, a true knight,
one greatly different to those who intrigued in the court of Naples.
And now had he not proved himself such an one as any of them. Careless
of his brother, he had stooped to dally with the Queen; careless of
his honor, he idled the days in too fair Naples; careless of his
betrothed, he deigned to turn to Sancia’s adoring loveliness. Bitterly
she asked herself--are these the actions my knight would grace his
mission with? Bitterly she answered herself--no.
And she felt as if the shame he was unconscious of rested upon her
soul. The memory of the dead Andreas in the syringa bushes was as an
accusation; the thought of him in Santa Chiara as the thought of a
sin.
To her the seal of damnation was very surely upon Giovanna that moment
when her lips touched those of her murdered husband’s brother, and the
terrible shadow of it was over her own soul. The awful thing that had
driven the Queen to madness was unsettling her sister’s clear reason.
She tortured herself thinking that to be passive was a sin, thinking
that to speak was a sin. She felt herself gripped by a doom that was
steadily nearing--nearing burning Naples, nearing the wicked palace,
where Giovanna smiled in her sin, where Ludovic caressed her and
Sancia wept for love of him--nearing all these tangled nightmare
miseries to blot them out forever under the blackness of utter
annihilation.
With a fierce effort she controlled her wild thoughts and crept slowly
to the bed to look at Sancia.
The Paduan girl was seemingly asleep. Her flushed wet face showed with
the freshness of a rose between the twisted yellow of her locks. Where
her dress had slipped, her bosom shone white and soft, and heaved now
and then with light sobs.
“Would I could find rest as easily,” whispered Maria d’Anjou. She
gazed at the childish beauty before her with compassion and no touch
of envy, though she did not forget that the splendid Ludovic, for
whose coming she had waited so anxiously, had turned from her to
this--the Queen’s waiting woman.
Presently a soft knock on the door disturbed her. It was her page, who
attended in the antechamber, with a message that the company awaited
her in the dining hall. Maria put out the candle and trimmed the lamp,
drew the bed curtain so as to shade Sancia’s sleeping face, and left
the chamber.
In the outer room sat her tire maid, under a bronze statue of Santa
Chiara. She worked at endless lengths of embroidery, and the page was
at her feet, holding skeins of somber-colored silk.
“Sancia di Renato sleeps on my bed,” said Maria. “I think she will not
wake until my return--ye will not rouse her.”
She sat at the supper table that night as she always sat
there--silent, holding herself aloof, so quiet amid the talk and
laughter that few looked her way, yet herself acutely observant, with
sad eyes of judgment. This evening the whole scene flared before her
in colors so sharp and with a meaning so ghastly that more than once
she lowered her lids to escape it; still, like a great bedizened
picture, it rose, even before her closed eyes: Ludovic of Hungary,
flamboyant in black and golden tissues; Giovanna beside him, robed in
yellow with her red hair gleaming against a background of cushions of
noir and murrey; the dark faces of the Hungarians, the smiling faces
of the Italians, beautiful forms of women, sitting carelessly round
the board between the upright figures of the men; the shape and
glitter of gilt vessels and the sparkle of rich glass; Luigi of
Taranto, with the eyes of a reckless man, lounging forward on the
table, the emerald studs in his collar shining over his scarlet dress
and his face flushed and heavy; Carlo di Durazzo, fallen into the
glooms, frowning at the white hounds who fawned beside him; and all
lit by the soft yet gleaming light of wax candles that showed like
vivid stars in a bright haze.
Opening her eyes resolutely and gazing down the table at the King’s
dark face, Maria d’Anjou came to a resolution.
All the long dread and horror had culminated to-day in Sancia’s tale.
She would fly from the impending doom, leave the sinners to their sin.
In a convent she would pray for the soul of the forgotten Andreas.
First she would speak, for once, to Ludovic of Hungary, and release
him from the formal bonds he deemed so light.
When they rose from the table, she waited by her place for the King to
pass.
The Queen went by, but never looked at Maria. Ludovic, seeing her
waiting, glanced at her expectantly.
“My noble cousin,” she said in a low voice.
He stopped instantly and surveyed her, unsmiling, though he was not
ill-pleased that her stately coldness had been brought at last to
notice him.
“I do desire,” continued Maria very softly, “to have speech with you
on matters of import--to me, at least,” she added proudly.
Ludovic bent his head in a slightly mocking manner. He never took a
woman seriously enough to be ever impressed by her gravity, and he
thought of this cold bride of his as a heartless creature of caprice.
Maria saw his estimate of her in his arrogant eyes, and the pride of
her own regal blood fired her beauty.
“Well,” she said in a louder voice. “Have I that privilege to speak to
you?”
The King was looking at her very obvious loveliness. When, as now, she
was flushed with animation, she owned a color and a sparkle that made
the Queen hard by comparison and Sancia faded.
“My time is yours,” he answered in a stately fashion, but with smiling
eyes. “Put me at your commands.”
“If you will be here in the morning when none are abroad, I will come
to you.”
He lifted his brows.
“Mass! Is it so weighty--and so secretive?”
“Neither,” she replied quickly. “Yet I pray you come.”
He laughed a little.
“’Tis not a difficult request, God wot.” Maria’s blue eyes lifted to
his steadily.
“I shall be here--and now, fair liege, the Queen waits for you.”
She turned from him with so considered and quiet a dismissal that his
magnificence was moved to a half-angry, half-amused interest.
Resisting the desire to follow her, he turned to Giovanna, watching
with fearful eyes, standing in the doorway, waiting him.
“What did she say?” she asked, as he came up to her, for she was
afraid of her sister, although she had so completely won the King from
her.
“Naught of any matter,” smiled Ludovic. “Naught that can trouble you
or I----”
And he touched her hand delicately, where it hung against her robe, as
if he would recall that afternoon to her mind.
But she gave him a sick glance and a forced smile for his answer.
Maria went back to her chamber. The page had gone, the maid was half
asleep over the endless sewing that crept in its shining colors about
her knees.
“Has Sancia gone?” asked the Princess.
“Some moments since, Madonna.”
Maria turned into the bedchamber and locked the door.
To-night, that was to be the last night of it all, she would destroy
those pitiful relics of the murdered King, and with them all
temptation and all hope or expectation of worldly help or pleasure.
Ludovic of Hungary had failed her. From first to last the Queen had
triumphed. It was not for her, but for God’s avenging angels to seek
their judgment and their punishment.
She lit a couple of candles and turned up the lamp.
The sight of the tumbled coverlet recalled Sancia’s bitter distress.
Maria thought sadly of taking her with her into the convent of Santa
Chiara; then of the King and Sancia’s hot words, “the most splendid
knight in the circle of the world.” Perhaps he was. She held her
breath to think of him. What if he had spurned Giovanna, avenged his
brother--and, her lover and lord, taken her back to Hungary?
For a moment’s space she flushed and stood still, thinking of him,
then--“Giovanna’s lover,” she said to herself. “And Sancia’s
flatterer!”
She went swiftly to her coffer. The lions and cherubs of the molding
were picked out in the yellow light as she raised the lid. The breeze
from the bay blowing through the open window stirred the tapestry on
the wall and her red dress.
With a prayer on her lips, she prepared to burn into ashes and
oblivion these things, the destruction of which she had dallied with
so long, drawing the candle closer with cold fingers.
Then shock relaxed the quiet of her nervous tension. She cried out in
a strange voice and flared the candle full into the open coffer. It
was bare. The little casket had gone. She had left the chest unlocked,
never thinking--and some one----
Then she remembered and knew.
“Sancia,” she whispered, “Sancia will show them to the King.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.
THE TRUTH
Ludovic of Hungary stood silent and thoughtful. The early morning
sun made a great brightness in the chamber. The King had a parchment
in his hand; on the floor beside him knelt a young boy who was engaged
in lacing up his high leathern boots. For the rest the room was empty.
The parchment in Ludovic’s hand was a letter from Hungary. It had
recalled sharply that he was in danger of forgetting his own kingdom,
and the epistle his mother had sent recalled Andreas and the object of
his coming.
The instincts of the King and the warrior responded to the questions
that lurked in these letters from home. Carelessness now and both
kingdoms might slip. Naples was not his in name. To please Giovanna he
had foreborne, leaving her at least the semblance of her authority.
She had interested him, fascinated him. He had set himself to the task
of winning her coldness as his pride had set his strength many
difficult tasks, and to this end he had done much for her, yet he did
not intend that Giovanna or any other woman should stand between him
and his ambitions.
He had stayed long enough in Naples, unless he remained as King, and
the King of Naples must be Giovanna’s husband--or her enemy.
Ludovic frowned. The Queen was extraordinary, a witch of a woman. From
the first she had won him by her subtle flatteries and her unusual
regal bearing, her strange face and quiet ways… he did not know if he
cared for her, but he knew that he would not dare Christendom to marry
her, and there was Maria.
Maria was finely dowered and the next of kin. To marry her was to come
one step nearer the throne. His brother had given his life for--yet if
the Queen took another husband----
He folded his letter up slowly and his frown darkened. What was to
prevent him seizing Naples, now it lay under his hand?
Nothing but Giovanna and what he might have said to her--lover-like
promises to vanquish her.
But that had lasted long enough. The other day had seen the end of it
in the shattered temple. Thinking of her and her strangeness, he grew
impatient. He was tired of her. He would leave her kingdom, marry
Maria and return to Hungary.
Then he scorned himself fiercely. Should he lose the chance of a
crown, and a crown rightfully his, because of a woman?
His eyes sparkled at the thought of conquest. He chafed at his late
gorgeous inactivity. His mind, roused by these letters and their spurs
at his idleness, was busy with plans of policy and war, the mustering
his armies, the conciliating of the Italians, when he remembered
Maria’s request the night before.
He had risen early on purpose, but the reading of his letters had put
her from his thoughts. The Hungarian galley that had brought them lay
at anchor among the shipping in the bay. As the King turned from the
room he looked back at it and thought of his mother.
Her letter was not gentle. She spoke of Andreas, her youngest and her
best beloved. The victims of San Eligio and the bloody death of the
Conte Raymond had not appeased her wrath. She refused scornfully to
believe in the innocence of the Queen. She urged her son to carry fire
and sword through Naples, and hang Giovanna as Andreas was hanged,
over the balcony of Aversa.
Ludovic descended the dark stairs slowly.
“That is Konrad of Gottif’s talk,” he told himself, “yet did she
convince me too easily?”
Frowning and with a heavy step he entered the dining hall.
The gay morning sun fell over the disarray of last night--faded
flowers, burned-out candles. On the Queen’s dais two white dogs slept.
Standing by the long, open window was Maria. Ludovic remarked that she
wore the same red dress as yesterday, and that her eyes were heavy
underneath, but he did not guess that she had spent the night in a
swound of prayer on the cold steps of her chapel altar.
He came over to her quickly.
“I am late,” he said. “Forgive it--letters came from Hungary last
night--I received them but now----”
She did not hear what he said. Eagerly she searched his face, set and
serious beyond its wont, for some hint of whether he knew or not.
Full of this one thought, she spoke:
“Have you seen Sancia di Renato this morning?” Her voice was thin and
weak from fatigue.
He flushed quickly.
“No,” he answered gravely.
She shook with relief. There was still time for her to find Sancia and
get the casket from her. She was silent with thankfulness.
Ludovic spoke again, a little haughtily:
“Why do you use Sancia di Renato’s name to me, Madonna? Was it to
speak of her you wished to see me?”
“No.” She sat down in a chair by the window and raised her tired eyes.
The King leaned against the long table and pushed the thick hair off
his forehead impatiently. She was over-grave, over-passionless for his
taste. In the morning light her beauty had lost its sparkle and looked
heavy and dragged. Her anger of last night had pleased him better.
He was obviously waiting for her to speak. She gathered her strength.
“Out of the confusion of many resolves,” she said, “I have come to
this decision--I do desire to acquaint you with it----”
The weight in her voice, the earnestness in her face startled him.
“What is your meaning?” he asked quickly.
“That I shall join the sisterhood of Santa Chiara,” answered Maria.
“To-day.”
He colored in sheer surprised anger.
“Is it to slight me that ye breathe this folly?” he demanded. “Are ye
not contracted to me?”
“It has been of little matter to you,” she replied gently. “I know
that this action of mine that gives me peace will give you no pain.
You do not know me. You cannot regret a stranger.”
He laughed shortly.
“I will not lose my wife.”
Maria rose. “You lose nothing. Never would I be your wife.”
Ludovic did not think lightly of himself, nor of what he had to offer.
That any woman should use these words to him was as astonishing as if
one of his soldiers should refuse to obey. He drew himself up from his
easy posture against the table.
“Mars!” he said hotly. “Ye will have no choice--ye are my betrothed
before Christendom.”
She stood silent, unmoved, with her hand to her forehead.
“What am I that ye should fly from me to a nunnery?” demanded Ludovic.
He thrust his hand into his sword belt and looked at her with proud,
narrowed eyes.
“Words breed dissension,” said Maria, “and naught else. This is no
matter for subtle argument, but for silent decision.”
“Is it, by the Rood!” cried the King with the hot color flushed up
under his eyes. “For my decision then, and that, God wot, is soon come
to--’tis that ye mind your duty and speak no more of nunneries.”
“Take it as ye will,” said Maria. “Ye cannot move me.”
Ludovic clenched the hand on his baldrick. “Ye are crazed utterly,” he
answered. His brows gathered into a dark frown. “This should have come
sooner--we have been betrothed long enough, God wot----”
At this, touching memories of her baseless, sweet dreams, the pale
color came into her face.
“You could never understand,” she said in a voice a little shaken.
Ludovic regarded her a moment in silence. Though more than once he
had, with larger issues in view and some thought of Giovanna,
considered breaking his contract with Maria, now he was firmly
resolved that nothing should prevent this marriage; that she should
refuse him would hurt both his pride and his policy.
“I came to Naples for you,” he said. “To perform our long betrothal
and the old King’s wish.” He frowned heavily. “There was a little
princess at my mother’s court,” he broke off.
Upright, unmoved, stood Maria, with the morning sun about her and her
eyes on the ground.
“I would have wedded her but for ye,” finished the King imperiously.
“My chosen wife ye are--my wife ye shall be.”
Her bosom stirred under the red gown. She raised her face a little
toward him; the passion that had made her glowing last night sprang to
life in her eyes now.
“Ludovic of Hungary--what is lost between us is outside speech.”
“What is lost?” he repeated.
She put her hands to her side and clasped them there. Her face,
flushed with that growing passion into a splendor of color, was lifted
as if she challenged him. “Ye speak of our long betrothal,” she said
unevenly. “Ye take credit that ye forbore another woman, thinking of
me--of me!” The word rang scornful. “Oh, believe that in my long
thoughts of you no other mingled--that, though they pressed me, I was
very constant to those thoughts I had of you.”
Her voice fell suddenly. Ludovic looked at her curiously, his teeth in
his underlip.
“I have watched until my eyes were weary, Ludovic of Hungary, for the
distant glitter of your spears. I have prayed until my lips were white
for your swift coming--my ears have strained for the sound of your
horses below my window--my heart has wearied for the sound of your
voice--but now, upon no terms ye could devise, for no reward ye could
offer, would I give myself to you.”
Pale, but with proud eyes still on her beauty, he answered her.
“What has wrought this change in ye?”
The hands over her heart tightened.
“Put that to yourself,” she said, and her blue eyes held accusation.
Inwardly he winced, though he let her see nothing in his steady face.
“You judge too soon,” he answered. He thought of Sancia. “And by a
woman’s standard,” he added with a faint smile.
“I neither judge nor condemn,” said Maria. “As I knew--you do not
understand.”
His smile deepened.
“Now you--perchance?” he came a step nearer, resolved on softer
methods. “Ah, well, we make the matter too heavy. Ye have been too
much apart. Give me the chance and I will prove to you a King may love
his wife----”
“Good my liege,” she answered. “I will not come second with any man.”
He looked at her straightly.
“So it is jealousy, after all?” And he wondered what she knew and how
she had come by her knowledge.
“No,” she said. “I think it is a great indifference.” Then her eyes
blazed again. “Do you think that if I cared enough to be jealous, I
should go into a nunnery?”
“You will not go into a nunnery,” he answered masterfully. “Whether
you care or not--no convent in Naples shall dare to take ye----”
“Do you think of my dowry?” she said bitterly, “that ye are so anxious
to detain me?”
Anger made his tone quiet.
“Not alone your lands, but all Naples is mine by the lifting of my
hand.”
“Then ye may spare me,” she answered and moved away by the long,
disordered table.
At that, seeing her turn quietly from him, Ludovic flared into open
anger. Instantly he was beside her, his hand on her velvet sleeve.
“Come,” he said. “Your reasons--ye do not set me aside so easily.”
She shrank as if his touch brought contamination. “My reasons?” she
echoed, her eyes dilated. He took his hand from her arm.
“I am very distasteful to you,” he exclaimed hotly.
Maria drew slowly away down the table. The sunlight lay like gold
threads in her heavy chestnut hair, and cast a delicate shadow over
her averted cheek, sparkled in the glass on the table behind her and
the smooth stems of the branching candlesticks.
“Mars!” cried Ludovic, struggling with quick anger. “You will tell me
more of this--what you mean----”
She looked at him over her shoulder with wild eyes. “Have I not said
what I mean?--the silence of the convent.” Then she was gone through
the arcaded window into the loggia.
Before his fierce impatience would express itself by following her,
the door by the Queen’s dais opened quickly, and was quickly closed.
Ludovic looked round.
Standing in the dark corner of the room where the sunlight did not
reach was Sancia di Renato, her white dress and her fair hair making a
brightness in the gloom.
Ludovic, seeing some purpose in her coming, connecting it in his mind
with Maria’s behavior, faced her in silence, his eyes bright with
anger at being trapped between the emotions and recriminations of two
women. Sancia was also still with awe and some shame.
The King frowned in a wrathful silence. Was he to lose his wife
because of a snatched kiss or two and words of homage to a lovely
face? “By Heaven,” he broke out, “what is the matter?”
But Sancia stood mute. She had risen early to find Ludovic and put
before him the stolen casket. To her the matter did not involve the
sins and punishments of a royal house, nor the agonizing intertwining
of bruised affections that it meant to Maria. She merely saw her lover
won by a woman whom she feared and loathed, and did the direct thing
in seeking to ruin the Queen and win back Ludovic.
But now, with shame and fear, she began to sob, clasping the casket to
her breast, now she was really face to face with him. Slowly she moved
toward the table, her white dress flickered with gold thread flowers
from the bosom to the feet. In her pale hair hung a little knot of
scarlet. Her eyes were misted with her late weeping, her mouth
trembled, and she gave quick, tearless sobs.
The King looked at her, and the flush on his dark cheek grew deeper.
The silence became terrible to Sancia. She set the casket on the table
and thrust it toward the King. “Take it away,” she said in a muffled
voice.
His intense eyes fell to the little casket. “What is this ye contend
over?” he asked.
Sancia gave one glance at the King’s face, and the full color surged
into her own. She sat down heavily on one of the drawn back chairs and
closed her eyes as if she was swooning.
“Why should I hesitate?” she said thickly.
A breathless pause fell. The immovable sunlight, the heavy silence,
became oppressive. Ludovic took up the casket and she made neither
sound nor movement. It was a wooden casket, covered with stamped
leather. In heavy gold it bore the arms of Anjou, and encircling the
shield of lilies was this inscription:
“Memorare * novissima * tua * et * in * eternam * non * pechalis.”
Ludovic handled it slowly. The motto glittered hardly: “Remember thy
later end and thou shalt not sin forever.”
He turned back the lid. Sancia was looking at him. And another’s gaze
was upon him. Maria, passing the loggia, had seen Sancia, seen it was
too late, and stood now, staring, breathless with this turn of fate,
silent with hopelessness.
He saw some little fair curls lying on a parchment that bore familiar
writing, and a gold chain he had often seen on his brother’s neck. He
put the casket down and stepped back from it.
“Why, what have you given me?” he said, and he was shaken as a man who
comes unawares on the dead.
With pity and terror, Sancia sat speechless, but Maria was strung
beyond tenderness. “I found those things in your brother’s room at the
Convent of Santo-Pietro-a-Majello,” she answered hollowly. “The letter
is to you--will you not read it?”
The King looked at her in a bewildered half-reproach, as if he
marveled at her swift return, and accused her of, in some way,
entrapping him. Then he took up the casket again, unfolded the letter
and read.
“I think he was too weary to finish it that night,” said Maria dully.
“And on the morrow he was dead.”
(She came slowly into the room, to the terror of Sancia.) Ludovic gave
no heed to her. He laid the letter back, looked at the broken chain,
then he said, very hoarsely:
“This hair?”
“Yea,” answered Maria. “As I found it… on the balcony…”
“And this?” he raised distracted eyes to her as he touched fearfully
the fragment of brocade and the auburn curl.
“That,” said Maria, with an indrawing of her breath, “is--her--hair
and _her_ dress.”
She ceased sharply.
“Yes?” whispered Ludovic.
“I took it from his hand,” she answered him, “as he lay beneath the
balcony--_her_ hair--_her_ dress--clutched in his dead fingers----”
Her words stumbled into silence. The King stared at her, holding the
open casket in his hand. Sancia rose by the table with her finger tips
on the shining table, and her great weary eyes fixed on Ludovic.
Suddenly Maria spoke again, like one wounded and grown fierce with
pain.
“You have the truth now--my reasons and all you asked for--the
truth!--what will you do with your knowledge?”
Ludovic closed the casket.
“You wish me to think,” he said. “You mean me to think--that Giovanna
is guilty----”
“Think what ye will,” answered Maria. “For I say no word one way or
the other.”
“I do not believe it,” said Ludovic. “Remembering her as she came to
me--I--do not believe it----”
Maria would not speak, but Sancia, leaning against the table, cried:
“I know she is guilty.”
Ludovic turned slowly and looked at the speaker.
“Of what?”
Sancia’s white lips shaped an answer.
“Of murder--of murder planned, of murder performed--of the murder of
her husband and your brother, Andreas of Hungary.”
Since Konrad of Gottif had left, he had not heard that name. Hearing
it now in this manner held him silent, the color ebbed from his face.
He looked at neither of the women, but at the casket on the table.
“Have I not lived near her?” continued Sancia thickly. “Do I not know
that she is a devil?”
Ludovic looked sharply up at Maria.
“You!--why do you stand there silent?” he demanded. “What do you think
this means?”
“I think it means she was there--when they slew him----”
“Means!” burst out Sancia. “It means they slew him in her chamber, by
her bed--it means he clung round her knees and they cut away her hair
and her dress to free her--did I not see her wipe her floor with her
linen vest and fold away her stained coverlet?”
“Ye come late with these tales,” said Ludovic. His face was livid, his
mouth worked uncontrollably. “Is there one alive,” he asked
desperately, “of those who were there that night?”
Maria answered him in her weary way. “They perished in the fires of
San Eligio.”
“Yea,” said the King quickly. “She punished them----”
“She took good heed to that,” flashed Sancia. “And with the Conte
d’Eboli--did he live to speak with you? I do think that when ye looked
into his face he was dumb.”
It was a keen truth that seemed to show Ludovic his own folly in a
swift flash; yet still he struggled with his old conviction. “Why have
ye kept this from me?” he asked. He turned to Maria. “Why have ye
conspired also to fool me--if this indeed be truth?”
“God knows,” she said wearily. “I have tried--I have waited--this
Paduan maid has solved the riddle--the dishonor of our house comes
better from her than from me,” her face lit with a cold pride, “for I
also am of Anjou.”
The King looked from her to Sancia. “So you, out of hate for the
Queen, bring me those,” he repeated his words, “out of hate for the
Queen.”
Sancia lifted appealing eyes. Her wrath had died, leaving only shame
and wretchedness. “I spoke because I was not strong enough to remain
silent,” she murmured brokenly. She slipped into the chair behind her
and hid her face.
“Ye loathe the Queen,” said Ludovic. “As most do--God wot she has few
champions. Belike ye lie because of this hate.”
At that Sancia looked up. “I do not lie,” she whispered, “though I am
very sinful--I speak the truth now.”
“Still ye hate the Queen,” repeated Ludovic sternly. “And your word is
but the word of a shallow woman.”
Maria came from the window and put her hand on Sancia’s hand as it
rested on the table. “It is not for ye to speak so of her,” she said
with a quick color in her face. “If what she has done be to her
shame--then on your soul rests that shame----”
Ludovic glanced from one to the other angrily. “So she has confided in
you, my cousin?” he frowned fiercely. “When women league together, a
man may never come at the truth.”
Sancia rose, hiding her face in her sleeve. “Ye will never be troubled
again with me,” she said in a muffled voice. She lifted her wet eyes
suddenly. “Shallow I may be and a thing not fit to disturb your
thoughts, but do ye blame me that I took a King’s lies for truth?” She
turned down the room. The sunlight gleamed an instant in the flowers
on the gown and the pale hair, then the shadow enveloped her. She
walked steadily to the door. The King, watching her, saw her pale
fingers part the arras, saw it fall together as her quiet step died
away.
The Princess made a movement as if she would have followed.
“Stay,” said Ludovic. He put out his hand to detain her. “Nay; ye
shall speak to me,” for he saw silence written in her face. “I will
know if ye work on me for your own ends----”
She interrupted him. “Do you think me that manner of woman? My ends? I
have told ye my ends--a convent cell, a convent grave.”
In sad contrast to her youth were her words and her tired voice.
Ludovic, bewildered, baffled, looked at her with horror in his eyes.
That the soul should ever weary of the flesh was beyond his
conception.
“Maria,” he said, for the first time using her name, “ye are to be my
Queen. Ye shall not talk of graves.”
Her face held wondering contempt. “Do you not understand--now?”
His gaze fell to the casket.
“Ye think of Giovanna,” he said heavily.
“I think of her,” answered Maria.
Ludovic looked up again, fiercely. “How shall I deal with her?” he
cried, goaded.
“As ye list,” said Maria. “As ye judge, punish, as ye believe, act.
For me, my life is over. Farewell.”
All life and color had faded from his face, but he answered steadily:
“I am master in Naples, and before two days are out ye shall be my
wife. If ye enter a convent, I will bring you hence--yea, even from
the altar steps. And as for Giovanna----”
He caught up the casket.
“As for Giovanna,” he repeated.
Maria, standing in the shaft of sunlight with unmoved eyes, was
silent.
“What shall I do?” asked Ludovic thickly, frowning at her. He wished
to bring her to either an accusation or a defense; to draw something
from her, to some way probe her calm.
But she answered evenly, “I have no more to say.”
“Curse your saintliness!” he cried hotly. “But, after all”--he smiled
bitterly--“between me--and--Giovanna--the sword decides.”
With the chest held against his side he left the dining hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.
FLIGHT
Maria turned through the long, open window into the garden.
She looked at the trees, the roses on their trellis, the sky and the
long shadows, but could not escape the sense of confinement,
imprisonment, that had haunted her in the house.
Slowly she walked down the paved path. The yellow sunshine could not
warm her numb flesh. She thought of Giovanna. Giovanna quiet,
stooping, with her reserved eyes and expressionless mouth. She thought
of Ludovic, with the casket held to his side. She thought also of his
words about the convent, and his refusal to set her free.
The walk was set with lilies. Her red gown caught against them; one or
two fell, broken, on the path behind her, but she did not notice.
Presently she came to the marble terrace overlooking the bay, and
slowly she turned and stared at the palace.
With a cold force, she resolved that she could never enter it again.
That she could not look on Giovanna’s face when her secret was dragged
into the light… that she must escape.
Escape! It was all about her like walls. The peaceful trees, the quiet
flowers encircled and held her. Aimlessly she wandered. The plash of a
fountain and the crystal light of it, broke her distraction. She
paused, holding back the thick citron.
Carlo di Durazzo sat on the marble rim of the fountain. His head was
turned from her; he stared into the water where his blue habit was
reflected, and the gilded fish clustered round his fingers.
Beside him sat the Dwarf, half asleep, on the long grass, with the
shadow of his ungainly head thrown across his tawdry vest.
The citron bough slipped from Maria’s grasp. The confused terror and
wretchedness of her thoughts found relief in words and action.
“Carlo!” she cried, and with a hot vehemence that startled herself.
At once he turned, scattering the fish like threads of gold through
the shining water. At once he rose and came toward her, with a flush
of expectation on his smooth face, as one who receives a long-expected
summons.
Maria held out her hands.
“I cannot go back to the palace.”
Carlo took her cold fingers into his hot grasp. His indolent
indifference fell from him like a discarded cloak. “Is it my
chance--at last?” he said simply.
The Dwarf, awaking at the sound of voices, saw the King’s betrothed
holding the arm of Carlo di Durazzo as the two slipped through the
trees. Saw the red and blue garments shine between the thick leaves
and disappear. He drew himself up, climbed on to the edge of the basin
and laughed. He disliked the King of Hungary, who had told him that
his voice was cracked and his wit stale. He saw the makings of a
pretty scandal in those two hurrying through the garden, and a scandal
that would touch Ludovic. Therefore he laughed and winked at the
goldfish.
He amused himself by picturing their swift, cloaked flight from the
half-slumbering palace through the sunlit streets to the Castel di
Durazzo. The quick summoning of the Duke’s soldiers, perhaps of the
discontented populace--sedition in a moment, scattered like flame, and
as quick to seize hold and destroy.
The goldfish swam round and round in a busy idleness. The dwarf nodded
to himself, half asleep again, and was again aroused by one stepping
into the shade out of the heavy glare of the sunshine.
It was Luigi of Taranto, massive, gloomy; his red hair hanging over
his red face, and his gray eyes narrowed.
“Good morrow, magnificence,” said the Dwarf pleasantly.
Luigi of Taranto leaned against the slim trunk of an acacia and folded
his arms across his chest. He wore leather, much worn, with armor, and
a great sword dragged in the grass beside him.
“Is the Queen abroad yet?” he questioned.
“I do not think so, magnificence.” The Dwarf stroked his chin. “Have
you seen the Hungarian galley in the bay?”
The Prince nodded.
“I have seen the man who brought the letters to the King from it. Who
do ye think he was, fool? Lasglo, who was here with Andreas! I spoke
with him. He says Konrad of Gottif has returned, and with a woman.”
“We have enough women,” remarked the Dwarf.
Luigi of Taranto smiled sourly. “He has come to stir the King up
against Naples. Hark to me, fool--if ye value your ugly skin, ye will
leave Naples.”
The Dwarf caught one of the fish and held it slackly in his huge hand.
“Ye would not vouch for the safety of this city of ours,
magnificence?”
The other frowned.
“Even now the people fight the Hungarians in the streets. Riots and
mutinies at every turn. Des Beaux his withdrawn to Baiae--we near the
last struggle, fool.”
The Dwarf let go of the writhing carp and watched it swim away. So had
Maria d’Anjou and her fortune slipped through the fingers of Hungary.
“Who is there to struggle?” he asked. “Ludovic is the master.”
“There is the Queen,” said Luigi of Taranto. “And the man who marries
the Queen.”
The Dwarf looked at the water.
“Oh!” he said, under his breath, and he glanced at the Prince
sideways. Aloud he remarked:
“And there is your splendid cousin Carlo.”
The Prince smiled.
“Fit companion for you and dancing minstrels is the splendid Carlo,
and for naught else.”
Whereat the Dwarf also smiled, hugging his secret.
Luigi of Taranto moved from the tree.
“Here is a crown for some man’s winning,” he said breathlessly. “And a
Kingdom to be striven for.” He checked himself, and looked down at the
little deformity he towered over. “Hast been in the streets lately,
fool?”
“Yea,” the Dwarf nodded.
“How seemed the people?”
“Discontented, magnificence. Hot against the Hungarians. One ran along
preaching the end of the world--sedition is hot.”
“So seemed it to me,” said Luigi of Taranto thoughtfully, and he
turned away with his eyes moodily on the ground.
The Dwarf took off his cap and fanned himself with it, chuckling.
“The Queen!” he mocked, “and the man who marries the Queen!” He made a
grimace at the tall figure walking slowly, yet resolutely, toward the
palace.
Then, meditating on the people about him, their situations, their
actions, he arranged on the broad brim of the fountain little symbols
of them, with a thoughtful air. For Giovanna, a dark citron leaf,
regal, yet suggesting secrecy; for Maria, beside her, the petal of a
lily, cold and fragrant; for Ludovic of Hungary, the gaudy striped
blossom of a carnation, blood-red and gold; for Sancia, a humble
daisy, pulled from the thick grass. There remained the Duke di Duras,
Konrad of Gottif and Luigi of Taranto. The Dwarf felt in his pocket
and brought out a little knot of blue ribbon for Carlo, and a little
twist of leather cord for his cousin. To represent the fierce
Hungarian, he picked up a piece of hard, dry stick and laid it by his
master, the carnation. His arrangements complete, the Dwarf hunched up
his knees and laughed. A steady little wind was blowing sweetly
through the trees. He waited, watching to see which of his kings,
queens and princes would blow away and which would linger.
For a moment, none of them stirred; but a japonica blossom, red and
fresh as a drop of wet blood, fell into their midst.
“Now who is this?” questioned the Dwarf. Then he smiled hugely. “’Tis
the woman who came from Hungary with Konrad of Gottif!”
Even as he spoke, the breeze, gathering in strength, swept away the
daisy and caused the lily leaf to tremble.
“The scene is soon clear of Madonna Sancia,” commented the Dwarf.
But, with the next gust, knot of ribbon and the carnation had been
swept into the fountain.
The others stood steadily. The Dwarf counted his survivors.
“Luigi, Maria, Konrad, the Queen--and the woman who came in the galley
from Hungary!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.
CAROLA OF BOHEMIA
In his bedchamber the King mused sullenly, at war with circumstance.
He had refused himself to those who sought admission to his presence,
and, when he chose to raise his head to listen, he could hear the
busy, perturbed voices of his Hungarians talking without the door.
Doubtless they wondered. Doubtless they saw, as he did, now these
letters from home and the shock of Sancia’s accusation had roused him
from his gayeties, that in the next few days Naples was to be lost or
won.
He had put himself in a position not easy to hold with dignity. He
knew they cursed him and his soldiers in Naples. He knew they mocked
at home at his absence. He had roused the disdain of his mother and
his betrothed--merely to pleasure Giovanna, who, if what they said was
true, he should have delivered over to death months ago.
Yet he did not believe it was true. Last night, with eyes ardent, but
not lover-like, she had entreated him to a grave conference to-day.
She had spoken with a man’s weight and clearness of the state of
popular feeling; of the ill-paid mercenaries, the mutinying guilds,
her own empty coffers. She had urged upon him (putting aside his
lighter talk with an absorbed frown) the reasons for his swift
marriage and return to Hungary. Thinking of her as she was then,
thinking of her as she had come to him in the old farmhouse at Aversa,
he could not believe this thing.
The midday sun was ruddy over the brown panelings of the room, with
their gilded lines, over the heavy polished furniture, and the scarlet
and gold of the great bed.
On the steps of it, spread with fine, rich carpets, sat Ludovic, his
young face pale and lined. The sight of his brother’s unfinished
letter and broken chain had been like sudden announcement of that
brother’s death, as if until now he had never realized that Andreas
lay silent forever in San Gonnaro, bitter memories of their common
boyhood arose to wound him: the generous worship of Andreas toward his
elder, their great hunts together--at home in Hungary.
Ludovic bowed his head. He thought of Konrad of Gottif’s hot arrival
in Buda, of his account of Andreas’s death and fierce denunciation of
Giovanna, his mother’s tearless face as she had said to him, “Go ye
and slay this woman.”
But it was so easy to forget--the present was so strong. He had
forgotten; forgotten those vows in Buda, forgotten his own dead,
forgotten those waiting at home.
Yet even now, with awakened remorse and grief in his heart, he was
convinced that his judgment had been mistaken in pronouncing Giovanna
innocent--neither Sancia’s passion, Maria’s calm nor the lock of hair
had convinced him of that.
He tortured himself with doubts into a misery of hesitation. He could
form no resolutions out of his tangled emotions. His strongest feeling
grew to be a great dread and horror of meeting the Queen.
As the hour in which he had promised to meet her drew nearer, that
fear of her grew. He could not look into her face until he had
decided--he could not speak to her until he knew.
He wished Maria had goaded him. He would be the instrument, not the
judge. His blood was cold toward Giovanna. Let some one fire it, and
he might act, but in this spirit of sick wonder he could do nothing.
He rose from the steps of his bed and paced to and fro. He pictured
Giovanna waiting for him. He pictured Maria watching for him to act,
until his thoughts grew past bearing.
Then Sancia occurred to him--whether she lied or not, she knew
something. He thought he could manage Sancia, and came at last to this
resolve--to find her and question her, to nerve himself with her
invective against the Queen.
When he left his room, he found that it was later in the day than he
had imagined. He reflected that several hours had passed since Sancia
had spoken to him, and that he had dallied with the situation longer
than he had intended.
The antechambers were full of his people, idly amusing themselves.
He reprimanded them curtly for their careless lounging, and left a
hush behind him as he passed them. They knew he was not always the
mere gay knight Naples had known--he could be terrible.
In the library of the old King Roberto, hardly used in the Queen’s
reign, Ludovic had first met Sancia alone.
She was dreaming over a book in French, “La Cité des Dames,” and he
had come to look for a volume on falconry Luigi of Taranto had told
him of.
Since then they had often met there, and about this hour. She might be
there to-day.
With this thought in his mind, Ludovic ascended to the first floor of
the tower and entered the library.
It was a large, low room, with narrow windows of painted glass behind
a trellis of ironwork. The ceiling was of cypress work, painted in
silver with the arms of Anjou; the walls of carved oak, against which
were arranged the books in long, gilded shelves. A great silver lamp
hung from the ceiling, and thirty branching candlesticks, decorated
with knobs of lapis-lazuli, were fixed to the wall. In the time of the
old King, these had been alight day and night, but in the court of
Giovanna there was no one to save the lamps of learning from
extinction.
Ludovic closed the door behind him.
Sancia was there, seated under the window in the massive reader’s
chair, carved with flowers and monsters, and cushioned in dull purple
velvet. She looked up. Her white dress and her shining hair were
tempered to dull gold by the light pouring through the thick, colored
glass behind her. The book she held in her hand slid to the ground.
She did not speak, and Ludovic was also silent. The still atmosphere
of the place, the silence redolent of peace and wisdom was over them.
Then Sancia said brokenly:
“I did not think you would come to-day, or I should not be here.”
Ludovic picked up her book. It was an “Horæ,” and the open pages
glittered with saints. He put it back on the shelves, then turned and
looked at her.
“Sancia,” he said gravely, in a very low voice, “you must tell me what
you know--about the Queen.”
She set her small hands on the smooth heads of the snarling dragons of
her chair and clenched them there, tightly.
“I have told enough,” she answered faintly. “God forgive me.”
The silence fell again, and with it that sense of perfume of peace,
the accompaniment of beautiful books, that, even when dumb, breathe of
calm and wisdom. Then she said, in a voice that hardly stirred the
air:
“I am going home to Padua.”
Ludovic stood leaning against the shelves, dyed gold from head to foot
by the sun shining through the regal quarterings on the window.
“Did ye, then, lie to me?” he asked breathlessly.
She leaned forward in her chair and stared at him. “Nay, I did not
lie.”
With the lifting of her eyes to his, something of the restraint
between them vanished.
“Sancia,” he said slowly, and came toward her. “Forgive me, sweet--my
sweet.”
She rose, and put out her hand as a barrier between them.
“I am going home,” was all her answer.
He stood the length of her arm away from her.
“So easily?” he questioned. “And without answering me?”
Her hand dropped, and hung against the lilies on her dress.
“I will say no word against the Queen,” she said.
“Why did you speak this morning?” he asked.
She was silent a little while, and Ludovic watched the sand running
through an hour-glass that stood on the window-sill.
“I think you know,” she said at last. “All my life I shall repent
it--and”--sudden passion touched her cold speech like a flame
springing from ashes--“that ever I looked tenderly on your face, my
liege!”
He flushed to the eyes, but answered her proudly:
“Whether ye hate me or no--answer me about the Queen.”
She looked at him with intense expression in her eyes. It seemed to
him pity, and it wounded him sorely--the color burned more hotly in
his swarthy face.
“Nay,” he said, setting his teeth. “I shall think ye spoke slander
this morning.”
“The Queen!” answered Sancia wildly. “Why do ye think of her, when
Maria----”
“What of Maria?” he demanded.
“I had not meant to tell you,” breathed Sancia. “But she--is gone!”
“Gone?”
Sancia shrank away from his fierce glance.
“She could not face it--the Dwarf saw them go.”
When Ludovic spoke again his soft voice was rough. “Who went with
her?”
“Carlo di Durazzo,” whispered Sancia.
“Has that fool put this slight on me?” cried Ludovic. “Truly you have
made me your sport, you in Naples!”
A bitter silence reigned. Sancia looked at the King’s haggard face
with wide, yearning eyes. The golden light, changing, lay over the
Spanish leather on the floor, the rich covers of the book, and
sparkled in the silver lamp.
“Could not face it?” said Ludovic suddenly. “What could she not face?”
“Your dealing with Giovanna,” answered Sancia.