Chapter THIRTY-ONE: The Sword Decides!

/He/ thought that she had died somewhere in the miserable city, and this pale appearance had come to tell him so.

She crossed the floor in a quick silence. A hazy veil of the hue of a turkis was bound in her faint hair and floated about her as she walked.

She came to where he stood, dumbly, and put her hands on his shoulders. As she touched him, he knew she lived, and an extraordinary joy made his eyes sparkle.

Sancia sighed. A spell of wonder was over them--absorbed in the marvel of each other. They could not speak. Then he took her hands from his shoulders and clasped them in his own.

“We meet strangely,” he said, in a shaking voice, and she:

“Did you think of this?”

“I did not dare! I thought--ah, no matter.”

“I had to come. I have been walking the streets all day--thinking of it. I had to come.”

“Sancia! Sweet--my sweet!” he cried.

“You understand--I was in the Palazzo di Durazzo last night. I saw them bring Carlo home--and then--what was I saying? When you look at me I cannot think… Nothing mattered… save that I should come to you.”

“I have searched for you, Sancia. How strange it is! When I saw you I thought you were dead----”

So their low, broken thought trembled in the stillness it scarcely disturbed, and the forgotten taper he had lit flared among the untouched supper things on the table. At last he let go of her, and she sank in the chair.

“My feeling for you,” she said, “hurts my heart--exceedingly.”

She clasped her hands over the citron gown.

“Tell me you have thought of me.”

“Yes--yes.”

Leaning on the back of her chair, he stared down at her loveliness. It seemed as if her coming were a blaze of crystal light on many things--on everything. All the strange thoughts that had distracted him before she came had fled like a dance of shadows--he could not even recall them.

“I have been sick and weary,” she whispered, “but now I am healed. Look at me--never cease to look at me. Am I changed? My soul is different. I have been walking among the dead.”

“Sancia… I thought you hated me now… I did not dream of--this!”

Her blue eyes glowed with an intense animation. “Do you remember--in the library? I lied--you must have known it. Beyond all words I--you--it was always you. Listen!” She put up her hands and clung to his sleeve. “I was a fool--I tried to forget--to serve the queen and be virtuous like Maria. But I have come to you--I will stay with you until you are weary of me--then I will go away and die.”

“Sancia, you will do that? You could leave your people for me?” In a wondering way, he looked into her trembling face. A long breath shook her.

“Give me leave to be near you,” she cried, with her heart panting on her lips. “Let me follow you, and I will clothe me as your foot-boy, take such food as your varlets eat, such shelter as your horses have----”

He was silent, shamed by a passion that so far outshone his own feelings. Yet he loved her; he told himself that certainly he loved her. But a curious giddiness was beating in his head, a shiver like fever was in his blood, making his manner strange. He wondered vaguely if he were sick, or if her presence had excited him into bewilderment.

“The fairest face in Italy!” he said. “Will you come with me to Hungary if I go?”

“To the world’s end,” she answered.

“Will you stay with me in Naples if I stay?”

“Yea, and dance upon graves and sing above the dying, so you will smile--Ludovic! Ludovic! Ludovic----”

He seated himself opposite her at the table, and gazed across with a fiery brightness in his hazel eyes.

“The dying! We will revel it in this city, my Sancia!” he said gayly. “You and I--and you love me! By God’s truth, it is a fine thing to be loved. My soul, but you are beautiful. Will you sup with me to-night?”

She laughed suddenly, in a weak way.

“I have not eaten since morning.” Then her mood flashed swiftly into mirth. “I might be seated on a star, I feel so high above the earth.”

She leaned on the table, resting her two fair hands among the glass and silver. In an impassioned gayety, she related how she had found where he was, how she had taken the robe from a dead monk and, hidden under it, had crept into the Perlucchi Palace, found her way to his bedchamber, and lain concealed there until he was alone.

Her sudden joyous spirits infected the King. He found himself laughing in sheer elation of heart, as if this were a well-planned frolic her wit had achieved. The wild delight of stolen pleasure touched him. He crossed to her and kissed her on the forehead, where the pale hair rippled, on her ardent mouth. He thought her brow was hot, her lips feverish. Was not his own head reeling, his limbs on fire.

He swore by all he knew he loved her. Swore in a wild, half-defiant way--drew his chair beside hers.

Was it fancy that he staggered as he seated himself? She, at least, did not notice it. “This is the end of it!” he cried. “I will build another Naples--a sunny city on the sea--and of these old miseries, Sancia, we will make tales to spice our pleasures!”

He blew out the taper. She laughed, as if her mood flung words aside as useless things. She did not appear to know or care where she was, only that she stared at him over a glitter of glass and gold.

But to Ludovic the details of his surroundings were the real things. Her coming, her passionate statements of her motives, her very presence, were unreal, clouded. He could not bring his mind to comprehend them, for he was living only in the moment, and in some tattered recollections the monstrous beasts on the scarlet tapestry, the straight lines of the windows, and the vast stars beyond them, the dark square of the door opening into the bedchamber, the band of seed-pearls that edged Sancia’s gown where it lay round her throat; her foot, in its dusty little shoe, resting on the black and white marble--these held his attention. He set food on her plate, and she eat a little. He looked down at the spilt wine, and opened another bottle. A great desire to laugh and talk was upon him. Speech was a means to drug thought he could not pause to understand. The wine shivered from side to side of the crystal as he held up the glass.

“To my new Naples!” he cried.

They both drank. Then he was kissing her hands, and they laughed together.

“Listen!” he said. “I let the Queen go--I wanted no more blood.”

“I am glad,” answered Sancia.

“Yea, you understand!” His eyes were ardent. “We shall be happy--what does anything matter if one may have peace to laugh and sing in? Yet I have killed men in my time.” His black brows frowned. “What did Maria say when they brought Carlo home?” He stared into his wine glass as if he saw his cousin’s death mirrored there.

“They brought him to the chapel,” answered Sancia, “where the Duchess waited--the green weed was over his breast and the water dripped from him onto the floor. She closed his visor. ‘I am grieved there is none save I to sorrow for him,’ she said, ‘for he died like a knight.’ The hard-faced Prince of Taranto was beside her, and he answered: ‘No one can be mourned unworthily who has your tender thoughts, Madonna!’”

“Would I had slain him instead!” cried Ludovic. “I never loved him! Many a festival has his heavy face marred. But no more of this--I have golden thoughts of the future--ah, love of mine, golden thoughts indeed!”

He filled his glass again, and hers. There was heaped-up fruit in a mother o’ pearl and silver dish, lustrous grapes, bloomy peaches and golden apples. He turned them into her lap, smiling.

She picked up a bunch of grapes and gazed at it. He was watching her with enthralled eyes.

“Of late,” she said, “I have had visions of curious and beautiful things: women with roses pressed into their hair, ivory lutes and wonderful crimson birds, marble walks set with tangles of lilies, the bay at sunset, when the sails of the boats are all stained gold; gilded crowns and lordly armor, wrought at Milan--even as I wandered through the deserted city, I had visions of these things.”

The grapes fell from her fingers onto the floor, fell on the dried wine stain. She put her hand to her eyes.

“My head feels strange to-day.”

The King’s great eyes glowed with a kind of horror.

“You are weary, my heart,” he said wildly. “I, also----”

A silence fell on both. They sat up and touched hands across the table. As their fingers intertwined, each shuddered at the other’s burning flesh. Sancia looked slowly and fearfully round the chamber. The scarlet arras shuddered a little on the marble walls. Her clasp of the King’s fingers grew tighter.

“Ludovic,” she said in a toneless voice, “what is the matter with this place?”

Ludovic shivered.

“Why, I might have spared Carlo,” he muttered. “It is hideous to die so young, and unshriven--unshriven!”

Their eyes met. “What did you speak of?” she asked.

“I? Nothing--and you?”

Hollowly she answered, “Nothing.”

For all the heat, a little breeze had risen. It stirred the fair hair back from Sancia’s cheek and fluttered the edges of the long lace cloth.

Ludovic roused himself with a great laugh. “By God’s death, we are very somber! One was playing without--thrum, thrum--on a theorbo.”

He unlocked his fingers from hers and rose. The mauve hue of his tight velvet habit showed the flush on his swarthy face in a notable manner. Sancia, fallen back in her chair, watched him. The wick of the lamp was fluttering in the breeze, and cast a dancing shadow about him as he moved to the corner and took a theorbo of ebony and ivory from the wall. The water clock said midnight. After all, the hours had fled quickly.

Laughing, Ludovic of Hungary set one foot on his chair, and commenced playing:

Death, in vair and velvet (Hush, for the dancers have fallen asleep), Sang in the halls of mirth, And the tall and noble ladies Were still in the halls of mirth. (There was no time for kisses and no time to weep.)

“Why do you sing that?” cried Sancia passionately. “Ludovic, sing to me of love!”

Had not his gay singing and his skill with music won her first? But not this song----

But the King fixed his eyes on her and continued in his wonderful, soft voice:

Death, masked in satin (Hush, for the dancers have fallen asleep), Played the reveler’s tune, And the young and slender courtiers Heard not the reveler’s tune. (There was no time for kisses and no time to weep.)

Death, all gold and splendid (Hush, for the dancers have fallen asleep), Sang in the King’s ear, And the gay and mighty monarch Heard not the song in his ear. (There was no time for laughter and no time to weep.)

“Come to me,” whispered Sancia. Her voice shuddered through the pause on the ceasing of the song. The King dropped the theorbo onto the chair and came to her.

They clung together a minute. Then she spoke: “What is the matter with the place?”

“Santa Maria, Santa Maria!” muttered the King.

Silence again enwrapped them. She loosened herself from his arms.

“Hush!”

“What did you hear?” he asked.

“Horses--in the distance.”

“Who should be abroad to-night?”

“Who? Who? I fancied it. This time is ours--yours and mine. Look at me! Speak to me! Hold me!”

This time it was the King who said, “Hush!”

He spoke thickly, as if his tongue were swollen, and his eyes stared over her shoulder.

“There is--something in the bedroom!”

She shrank against him.

“You are ill! Jesu! Your brow is hot!” She shuddered. “You fancied it.”

“Look!” he said.

She turned her head and stared into the shadows of the bedchamber. His swarthy fingers gripped her white wrist, but she did not feel it.

“What do you see?” His voice was so roughened she could hardly hear.

“A man!” she muttered. “I see a man moving about. He moves very softly. I--I do not hear his footfalls.”

“Do you see what he wears?” whispered Ludovic, “now--as he passes the moonlight!”

“Rose and white hose,” she answered. “But I cannot see his face…”

Ludovic cried out in a great burst of agony: “He has no face. Did they not mutilate him? Andreas!”

“Why, you are mad!” shrieked Sancia. “It was not there--the thing is gone. There is nothing--nothing but the moonlight and the shadow from the bed----”

Quivering from head to foot, he set her from him and sank into a chair.

“This a cursed place,” he muttered. “I--but you, also, saw it!”

“No,” she said staunchly. “No--I fancied it. Why should he come to you?”

“I have not avenged him!”

She was down on her knees beside him, in a glory of passion, of beauty transfigured, of strength and courage. “You shall not think of these things to-night--but of me! Not of the dead, but of me--not of the past, but of me! Am I not fair enough to beguile you from these miseries?”

She fired him.

“Yes--yes!” He leaned from the chair and caught her up to him. With a sound of triumph, of joy, she laid her face against his.

Then--even in the midst of their kiss, she thrust him off and stood erect, with an awful change in her face.

“What is the matter with me to-night?” she said. She tried to laugh. The citron gown was heaving painfully over her breast. She snatched up the untasted glass of wine Ludovic had left.

“To drink!” she said thickly. “To our happiness!” She endeavored to put it to her lips, but spilled it over her bosom.

“Sancia!” shrieked Ludovic.

Her face was awful. Even as he stared at her she half turned round in a grotesque fashion, as if she were commencing to dance, then fell backwards.

Her head, with its cloud of hair unloosened, struck the chair and theorbo. There was a jangle of the strings, and she lay at his feet…

He looked down at her face staring up at him. For some seconds he could not believe she was there. He thought it some vision of a distracted brain--that she should have risen from his embrace to drop as if an arrow had touched her heart.

He went on his knees beside her. He lifted her up, and the soft blond hair entangled in his fingers. The lines of the little song he had sung:

And the tall and noble ladies Were still in the halls of mirth. (There was no time for kisses and no time to weep),

ran in his head foolishly.

She was quite dead.

Love, life and passion had been extinguished in her eyes as a little candle before a vast wind. He thought of their devilish Italian poisons. Could anything else have slain her so swiftly? Then he swore aloud that she was not dead and must not die!

With eager fingers he tore her bodice open to feel her heart. Silk and linen ripped under his hand.

He rose--sobered by the shock of sudden knowledge. The fantasies cleared from his brain. He backed from Sancia to the farthest wall, and, with pale lips, shaped a ghastly whisper:

“The Plague!”

On her white bosom were the black marks. It had been in her veins all the evening. The Black Death was abroad in the city! The robe from the dead monk! His brain worked quickly; he saw it clearly. Her excitement, her hot lips, her aching head--the Plague was abroad in Naples--the Black Death--the Mortality!

And now a wild horror of the infection seized him. It was the most terrible thing men knew--the Black Death. And he was shut up with it! For awhile he beat on the door. Then a new thought held him icy still.

It was also the secret of his reeling head, his distorted vision. He, also, was infected. His death was a matter of moments.

So it was for this tragedy the scene had been set. This was the horror that had lurked in the splendid chamber--the black and white, the scarlet and gold.

To die young and unshriven! Yet not as Carlo, in the press of battle, but in the lonely night, with this dead woman for company.

He pressed his face against the cold marble wall, and thought on such stories of the Plague as he had heard: how some died suddenly, some slowly. How some felt it so little that they fell silent in the midst of laughter. How to others it was a long agony--and always a thing beyond man’s understanding or cure.

This was what the great darkness had predicted--the Plague! the Plague!

His thoughts began to lose coherence. He paced up and down in a very torment of fear, incapable of speech or action; knowing only that he would sooner have died in the streets than amid this awful grandeur.

The water clock was at one. He stopped by the body of Sancia. How long since she had come breathing love, but hand in hand with Death? How long since she had kissed him with Death’s kiss on her lips?

Oh, future glorious indeed! Who would revel now over the dead and dying? Who would laugh over ruined Naples? Not these two, at least--since from the conquered city this horror had arisen to vanquish the victor! Ludovic the Triumphant, they had named him. It was a mockery now. Who was triumphant to-night? Neither Hungary nor Italy.

Outside the stars shone over the pointed dark poplars. He found himself wondering what this dawn would be like--this dawn he should never see? He felt himself weakening, and sank into the chair by the table, his fingers in his hair. All his youth, his beauty, his wealth, his rank, now--for life--yea, for life such as his footboy enjoyed--for life such as a beggar had who wailed in the streets of Buda!

The strum of zither and theorbo rose suddenly. Some wordless song struck the stillness. The stars were dancing in the heavens, and the great beasts on the arras began to move. Ludovic sat still, with starting eyes, while around him the stillness broke into a devil’s pageant of noise and color. Keeping time to the music was the sound of galloping horses and meeting spears, and banners tearing against the wind.

The monsters were out of the tapestry, and gold and glittering, they crept over the tessellated floor.

Thrum, thrum, and nameless things were dancing to the shrill melody. The harsh, metallic clang of cymbals strove against the steady march of eager drums. Voices rose, shrieking, shouting--some near, some far away.

Sancia sprang up from the floor and commenced dancing; her hair, in a spreading cloud, filled the chamber. She wore red shoes, and they shone in and out of her citron gown.

An uncontrollable excitement seized Ludovic. He sprang up and shrieked to the circle spinning round in a swirl of screaming color. The upward lift of the battle cries became intenser. Then someone shrieked:

“The Plague! the Plague! The King and the King’s love are stricken!”

Ludovic drew his sword. The door was flung open. Mailed men rushed in and out again. Thrum, thrum, went the theorbo. “Sancia!” cried Ludovic, and tried to catch her as she passed. Then the wild melody ceased, the dancers disappeared like smoke. A man came from the bedchamber door toward the King. He wore rose and white hose, and a mask was on his face. The sounds of battle and of dancing rose, unbearable and harsh, with a steady beat. The man took off his mask, and where his face should have been, should have been the face of Andreas.

The King sprang from the table. He strove to cut his way through the yelling rabble, but they closed on him. Sancia’s arms twisted round his neck. Andreas turned his faceless face as she dragged him down.

“Giovanna!” shrieked Ludovic. He leaped to the door, pulled it open. The darkness of the stairway smote him like a blow. The delirium cleared from his brain. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Sancia, a dead woman, on the wine-stained pavement, some unfelt breeze from some unseen window fluttering the citron silk on her still limbs, the fallen fruit lying near her soft, blond, scattered hair.

“Konrad!” he cried. He put his hand to his sword, and leaned over the marble banister. His terror-stricken voice echoed through the lofty palace, and distant shouting answered.

Unhelmed, unarmed, Ludovic of Hungary ran down the stairs; then, where they turned, he halted. A man was running up them.

The newcomer carried a great torch, that flamed across the King’s vision, and caused him to cry out with the bright pain of it, and to shrink back against the wall.

“Who are you?” shouted the other, not seeing him for the trailing fire and smoke of the torch.

“The King!” answered Ludovic. Then he added the one word that was the key to the wild horror of it all: “The Plague!”

Konrad of Gottif swung the flambeau above his head and stared into the King’s face.

“And Luigi of Taranto!” he cried. “The Neapolitans have risen.”

“The Queen?”

“Yea, by God Almighty, that witch is with them, Ludovic of Hungary.”

“And up above there is the Plague!” The King put his hand on Konrad’s breastplate, where the hungry flame was reflected, and thrust him back. “Let me pass. By all the saints, sooner Luigi of Taranto than the Plague. Let me pass!”

“Who is up above?” cried Konrad of Gottif, flinging up the torch. The streaming light showed a reddened sweep of marble walls. The King, leaning against them in his velvet undress, showed the one who carried it hard faced in ruddied armor.

“The Plague!” shrieked Ludovic. “The Plague is in Naples! Get me a horse--a shield!” He broke past Konrad, and dashed down the stairs, the other after him, clattering in his heavy mail.

In the splendid entrance hall cross lights shook and gleamed, interchanging with lurking shadows in the folds of the sumptuous tapestry, and round the figures of the assembled warriors. The great doors were open, and beyond them the burning night swooned with a regal dawn above the gorgeous, languorous garden. Through the dark masses of the poplars and cypresses the last stars blazed.

Ludovic came into the midst of them, staggering like a sick man.

“God’s curse upon this Italy!” he said. “Hungarians, we ride home to-night!”

Amidst the clamor and the hurrying to and fro they armed him, and as they buckled the straps and fastened the rivets, he shouted to them to make haste--make haste! They did not need his words. The Plague, invisible and strong as death, was behind all of them, urging, threatening.

Before the last stars had died, they were a-horse and gathered before the Perlucchi Palace. It stood empty to the dawn, save for the woman in the citron-colored gown, who lay on the floor of the scarlet tapestried chamber.

Like a dark cloud sweeping over the desolate city, the Hungarian army clashed through the streets, that were bare of everything save the dead and the dying, and no man among them gave a thought to this most beautiful city in the world, save to the leaving of it, for they had ravaged its loveliness in the lust of conquest, spoiled it of its wealth and ease, and now they fled before the Specter arisen from its ruins to avenge on Hungary the wounds of Naples.

In some of the streets there was fighting. Luigi of Taranto’s men and the Hungarian guards strove together in between the houses, and the meeting of the spears echoed through deserted homes and palaces, their gorgeous gates flung open to the foe.

But Ludovic of Hungary paused for none of it. He and his men hurtled through the dawning day, toward the doors of the city, toward Aversa, Benevento.

As they swept into the Palazzo San Eligio, they saw a great press of knights facing them, and against the pale purple of the Eastern sky hung the lilied banner if the Angevin kings.

There was a quick movement among either army, the putting of spears in rest, the tossing of plumes and bridles. But the two captains of the Neapolitans rode forward (one very slender, in golden mail, carried a bright, bare sword across the saddle. The other showed through the opening of his casque the masterful face of Luigi of Taranto).

Ludovic of Hungary spurred his horse to meet him.

“I leave your cursed city, Prince,” he said. “Am I to cut my way through your men?”

Luigi of Taranto backed his charger.

“No, Hungary--the way lies free through Italy.”

“Desolation is in Naples, and the Plague lurks in the Perlucchi Palace,” answered the King. “Joy to ye in your kingdom, Prince.”

The slender knight in golden mail removed the glittering helm, and red curls fell out like wine from a burnished mager either side of the frail face of Giovanna d’Anjou.

“Good-morrow, cousin,” she said, looking full at the King of Hungary. She raised her bare weapon. “Is it the sword that decides--after all?”

“The day is before us,” he answered madly. “We face the dawn, and Andreas is not ill-avenged!” With that he raised his hand, and the cavalry of Hungary thundered after him to the great gates that opened on the homeward road.

The Queen looked at Luigi of Taranto, and her eyes were not the eyes of a sane woman.

“Was that Andreas rode past?” she asked, and the sword shuddered in her hand. “Yet I am Queen,” she said, and laughed a little, staring at the stricken city.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Marjorie Bowen was one of several pseudonyms used by Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long (née Campbell).

The Alston Rivers Ltd. edition (London, 1908) was consulted for most of the changes listed below.

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. footboy/foot-boy, waiting woman/waiting-woman, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Formatting: abandon the use of drop-caps.

Punctuation: fix some quotation mark pairings/nestings, and a missing period.

[Chapter One]

“and showed coffers rugs, armor, and weapons piled against” add comma after _coffers_.

[Chapter Six]

Change “sat with crossed legs and _eat_ great red plums with relish” to _ate_.

“The _wingéd_ gods circled low” to _wingèd_.

(“the King--my _bethrothed’s_ brother--what if the Pope) to _betrothed’s_.

[Chapter Seven]

“One was in _brone_ and azure for Luigi of Taranto” to _bronze_.

(“Why your living has cost me somewhat.) add comma after _Why_.

“I am interested in this _manner_ between you and the Queen.” to _matter_.

[Chapter Twelve]

(“Knew!” the Contessa _lauged_. “My husband will never speak) to _laughed_.

“And eastward, along the banks of the _Volturna_” to _Volturno_.

[Chapter Sixteen]

“thought of the executions in the _Palazza_ San Eligio” to _Palazzo_.

[Chapter Seventeen]

(“I am asking your advice,” she said, in a low restrained voice) add a comma after _low_.

“his _usal_ lazy indolence in face and manner” to _usual_.

[Chapter Twenty-One]

“twisted a blossomless brier rose. the long, thorny stems” change the period to a comma.

“His clasp on her hands _tightenend_, and her cold countenance” to _tightened_.

[Chapter Twenty-Three]

(“It is not for _yet_ to speak so of her,” she said) to _ye_.

(“For me, my life is over, Farewell.”) change the second comma to a period.

[Chapter Twenty-Five]

“He would be the _intrument_, not the judge” to _instrument_.

(grasping the embossed back of “Les Trois _Virtu_,”) to _Vertu_.

“ye could face her and _knew_ her guilty, and wonder what to do” to _know_.

[Chapter Twenty-Eight]

“and from outside came heavy unusual sounds, the metallic clink” add a comma after _heavy_.

“and fasten an ermine _côte hardi_ over the yellow silk” to _côtehardie_.

[Chapter Thirty-One]

(“No,” she said _stanchly_. “No--I fancied it.) to _staunchly_.

“they were _ahorse_ and gathered before the Perlucchi Palace” to _a-horse_.

[End of text]