Chapter ELEVEN: The Auburn Curl

Maria d’Anjou, roused by distant cries, and finding her door for the first time in many hours unguarded, hastily threw on some of her clothes and ran out into the convent corridor.

She listened. That sound of shouting and crying coming through the pale-lit convent made her shudder; she connected it wildly and vaguely with the King’s visit and the fact that she had been kept a prisoner all day. She hurried down the dim gray stairs, not knowing where she went, and found herself in the great quiet hall of the convent. She paused and listened again.

A shriek rang out--and another--Maria, maddened by a sense of helplessness, confused by the strange light, ran up and down wildly. She could not find her way about nor discover any living soul abroad. With her limbs trembling she rushed down the gaunt passages until she came upon a mellow light softening the grayness--the candles of the chapel glowing through its open door.

Maria, panting, with her terrified face half-veiled by her fallen chestnut hair, her violet gown gathered hastily about her, turned into the chapel and confronted the six monks who knelt before the altar. The high springing tracery of arch and window was half revealed by the yellow candle-flames; the long, black habits of the monks showed somberly against the dim, painted glories of the altar.

“Something is happening,” said Maria, with dry lips. “What were those shrieks?”

The first monk turned about and stared at her. “We heard nothing, Princess.”

Indeed, now all was quiet, utterly quiet. Maria waited a second, then spoke.

“I have been a prisoner all day--I saw the King ride up--” Her accent became full of horror. “I think--it was his voice that I heard just now.”

The monks all crossed themselves in silence.

“Will you come with me to find him?” asked Maria, putting the hair back from her haggard face. “Where are his friends--will you rouse them? I think--I think they were murdering him.”

Without a word or gesture, their faces hidden in their deep cowls, the monks came slowly toward the door, each bending the knee to the altar as they passed. One put a candle into Maria’s hand, and in his toneless voice bade her lead them where she would.

“Hush!” she answered, and her eyes dilated as she crouched against the wall.

There came a sound of subdued but steady tramping; of a number of men walking stealthily, but heavily. Maria, gazing from the chapel door down the dark corridor, saw a little group pass at its far end. One held a lantern, and the light flashed, and the face of Raymond de Cabane, the chain collar of the man behind him, and the fair head of Bertrand d’Artois, who hung like a sick man between two others. They passed hurriedly and the passage was dark again.

“Where do they come from?” whispered Maria hoarsely. “Where do those stairs come from that they have descended?”

“The King’s room and the Queen’s room,” answered the man. “From the Royal rooms of the convent.”

Maria shivered.

“Rouse the Hungarians,” she cried, “bring some one----”

The monk behind her, she went down the corridor, walking unsteadily, the smoking flame of the perfumed candle bringing out her wild face and the flung-back splendor of her hair from the surrounding darkness.

In this manner, meeting no one, they reached the room from which the King’s chamber opened. Cold with dread, Maria looked about her, saw the fallen table, the poor scattered lilies, the torn tapestry. She gave a heart-smitten cry.

“Andreas!” she tried to call, and found her voice would not rise above a whisper. She stumbled to his chamber door, saw the dagger that bolted it, and now shrieked aloud.

One of the passionless monks withdrew the dagger, and with a sick catch at her heart Maria entered, fearing to see her cousin murdered, stretched on his bed, fearing…

Nothing--the room empty--yet as horrible as anything her fears had pictured--the tumbled bed, the clothes and boots as he had flung them down--the broken chain and the unfinished letter on the table--all desolate in the brightening light… she saw his sword in the corner and his hunting knife. So--he was without arms.

She picked up the letter and the chain, placed them in the bosom of her dress, and came back to the monks.

“He is not there,” she said, and extinguished her candle; it was so light they did not need it.

“Perchance he is with the Queen,” said one of the Benedictines.

Maria turned to her sister’s door. As she crossed the floor the strengthening daylight showed her strange, dark marks upon the floor--the little red roses, too, were torn from their place.

“Giovanna!” She struck on the Queen’s door wildly. All old dreads, old horrors, black visions of forsaken days and weeping nights came crowding upon her. Impossible horrors seemed realized in a reality worse than any dream. “Giovanna! Where is the King? Andreas!”

The door was locked from within and there came no answer.

“O God! pity me,” she moaned. She stumbled into the room again and fell on her knees beside the stains on the floor. “Look!” she shrieked. “Blood--wet blood.” She put her finger on one of the dark patches and held it up stained with red.

“And behold here by the window,” exclaimed a monk. Maria, dragging herself upon her knees, followed the trail of blood. At the sight upon the balcony she shrieked again--on the defiled roses lay little locks of bloody yellow hair and shreds of white linen. Tied to the parapet was a red silk cord.

“I can’t look over,” cried Maria frantically. “This is _his_ blood--his hair--they have murdered him----”

She hung back, clinging to the window frame as one of the monks advanced and, leaning forward, gazed below.

“Do you see anything, padre?” she muttered.

“There is something among the flowers--but I cannot see for the syringa bushes.”

“Is it--is it a man, padre?”

“Jesu! look down upon us! I see a man--one of his hose is white--the other pink----”

“It is the King!” screamed Maria.

She fell on her knees again and gathered up the fragments of his hair, the little scraps of his shirt, and pressed them to her cold bosom.

“It is over now,” she said. “They have murdered him.” She shook with great tearless sobs, then rose and gathered her dress round her breast.

“I am going to him.”

They followed her down the dark winding stair into the quiet garden.

A breeze blew softly from Melito heavy with the scent of grapes; the sky was glowing with an amber color flushed with rose; the cedars along the convent wall stood out clear cut, purple against the dawn; the soft-hued poplars shook silver leaves; in the flowerless lilac bushes a thrush was singing as Maria and the monks entered the waiting spaces.

The grass was wet with last night’s rain. She had lost her shoes, and her bare feet and her falling dress brushed the moisture from the flowers.

They found him under the balcony among the syringa with the rope round his neck. The monks knelt, two at his feet, two at his head, and began reciting the penitential psalms in a low monotone.

Maria stared at him a moment, then fell down at his side all cold on the wet grass.

The murderers had left little of the splendid Andreas. There was no trace in this mangled flesh of the gallant youth who had ridden into the convent a few hours ago. The brutal fall had finished their handiwork. Her mad eyes could not trace even the semblance of his face in that piteous head… only his hand--his beautiful hand, lay out on the grass unmarred. She took hold of that and laid her cheek to it, while the sun broke through the blushing sky in gold. Then she saw that there was something in his hand; a piece of embroidery, a lock of hair; she drew them from the dead fingers; a long auburn curl roughly severed--a gold brocade embroidered with a purple peacock and a crimson rose.

“O God! be merciful,” breathed Maria. She rose stiffly from beside the corpse and turned away across the garden, walking mechanically toward the house.

And after her rose the murmur of the psalms, a steady rise and fall through the laurels and lilac.

The whole convent was roused, the alarm had spread. Maria met Konrad of Gottif, fully armed, a drawn sword in his hand, rushing from the door.

The sight of him roused her into a flash of energy. “The King is murdered!” she cried hoarsely, catching hold of him--“he is in the garden with his head crushed in--they hanged him--from the balcony----”

The Hungarian uttered a sound of terrible woe and wrath and tried to push on, but she detained him.

“Fly! fly!” she said, “while there is time--they will prevent it soon--fly to Hungary----”

She crushed up the curl and the brocade in her hand.

“Bring King Ludovic to avenge his brother,” she said with a sudden ghastly composure.

Konrad of Gottif struck his hand fiercely against his forehead. “Is he dead--dead?”

“As we all shall be,” shuddered Maria. “Did you not bring your King to save us--quick--fetch Count Henryk--get your horses----”

She fell against the wall and could say no more. Konrad of Gottif looked at her.

“I will go, Princess; but, by God, I shall return.” He ran out into the garden.

Maria crawled slowly and painfully to her chamber. Noises were about, hurryings to and fro, but she met no one. When she was in her room she took from her bosom the letter, the chain, and the torn yellow curls, and laid them on the bed, and wept over them bitterly. Through her sick tears she read the few lines across the top of the parchment:

To my ever beloved Lord Ludovic:

The Queen has submitted, I am a King indeed with nothing to wish for--I rode through Naples to-day very triumphantly. We killed a boar to-day larger than any I have seen at home----

The writing broke off abruptly where his tired hand had dropped. Maria laid it down reverently, and with a kind of holy horror picked up the broken chain. It bore a case set with rough pearls containing two locks of hair, one yellow--like his own--the other black, of great brilliancy, as if gold sparkled underneath it, and a crystal cylinder with lapis-lazuli ends that encased some sacred relic, then there was the little amulet.

Maria stared at these things, and her throat and eyes ached with tears. She put beside them the auburn curls and the scrap of brocade.

“O Giovanna! Giovanna!” she sobbed.

Thinking of him young and splendid yester evening, writing light-heartedly to his brother, thinking of him now shapeless in the garden with the monks at his feet, thinking of those shrieks of agony that had rung through the silent convent, a passion of utter fury against his murderers shook her. She gathered up those poor objects of his tenderly and laid them in her jewel casket (despoiled of its contents by the Queen to pay for the loyalty of her followers) and locked it and put the key, together with the auburn curl and the brocade, under her pillow.

Then she wept anew, and flung herself along her bed, face downward.

The bright sun crept in through the narrow window, but Maria covered her eyes from it, remembering what it had shone upon through the syringa bushes.

Horror and misery in the form of cowled monks seemed to pace the room. The events of the night rose before her, dreadful, distorted. She sank into a feverish, half-conscious swoon, and terrible visions showed themselves to her like pages of a book turned over. She saw Giovanna on a gigantic white horse, riding over Naples and scattering cities like dust beneath her hoofs; she saw the sun rising out of the sea and a warrior lean from the East and take it from the sky and place it on his arm as a shield; she saw Giovanna again, calm and crowned, at the church door; then she saw the church crack and split, pressing the Queen into nothingness; then it seemed the world, gold and glittering, floated in eddying currents of blue, and over all the faces of it were great armies that struggled together and the blood that dropped from them stained the blue and put out the little pure stars that circled round about; then the Queen again, half naked with Andreas clinging to her hair and gown, and hideous shapes striking at him till he fell backward into a great void and lay at last still, with no head, under syringa bushes, and the syringa blossoms swelled into trumpets that blew a blast for vengeance, louder and louder, and the trumpets grew into armed men that loomed gigantic, and the blood of Andreas became a crimson flag that a warrior held aloft. Maria ran down to him and they stepped past the headless body of Andreas and began mounting innumerable steps, up, up, until a great wind began to take their garments, and they came upon a bare room where Giovanna crouched in a corner. And her auburn curls had grown over the room. They had to fight through them, like silken nets round their feet they clung, till at last the warrior pulled her from the meshes, and she showed very small and thin; he dragged her to the balcony where yellow hair and roses lay; he dragged her to the edge of the balcony…

Maria sat up on her bed, raving with horror, on the verge of madness, when her distended eyes caught sight of a sparrow that had flown in through the window and beat desperately round the room.

It steadied her, bringing her back to reality. With a fierce effort she struggled into self-control and got weakly from the bed, and, after a little, caught the frightened bird and put it forth again.

The sight of the fair, warm landscape quieted her. The sun was high in the soft, misty heavens, above the yellowing beeches and chestnuts rose the clustering towers of Aversa, toward Melito were the vineyards and orange groves. Her tears renewed themselves yet peacefully, and she returned to her bed and lay quiet. It was not the time now to lose her wits. If she kept her senses and her strength there was much she might do--she was Anjou as well as Giovanna; she had Alba, Giordano--fine estates in men and money; there was the Pope at Avignon and Ludovic of Hungary--if she went cautiously…

The door was lightly opened and Giovanna entered; not the gorgeous Giovanna of her visions, but a pale, tired-looking girl with lips feverishly red.

Maria could not speak to her. She lay still, thinking of the curls under her pillow.

The Queen came slowly to the bedside, and sat down heavily on the coverlet.

“You must make ready to come to Naples,” she said.

Maria looked up from her pillow with swollen eyes. “Ah, how you have been weeping!” said the Queen curiously; “you know what happened last night?”

“Yes,” answered her sister. “I have seen him----”

Giovanna winced.

“My God! did you dare?”

Maria sat up and gazed at the Queen.

“Giovanna, who murdered him?”

“Do you think I know?” cried the Queen. “What do you mean? They slew him last night in some quarrel--I do not know anything.”

“You did not hear the noise?” asked Maria. “Nor me knocking at your door?”

“No, no.”

“You did not lure him to this lonely convent that----”

“No,” interrupted the Queen fiercely. “No----”

Maria’s blue eyes stared in a strange fashion at her sister, with an expression Giovanna had not seen in them before, with a look that made her draw back before her sister.

“Listen, Maria,” she said feverishly. “We have all been playing deep--my friends have done this for me--I am innocent, I did not know before, no, nor till I heard he was dead--yet I cannot weep a man I hated--my rival and my enemy--let him go as better men have gone when they have staked their lives against kingdoms--as for me, I am the Queen again--the Queen----”

“And innocent--you say?” said Maria evenly.

Giovanna rose, shaking from head to foot.

“Do you think these men would make a woman their confidant? I know nothing, nothing.”

“Why was I kept a prisoner yesterday?”

“Ask Raymond de Cabane, he is master, not I,” flashed the Queen.

Maria put her hand over the pillow. It was as if she could feel the curl burning through like flame to her flesh.

“Giovanna--when did you last see him--the King?”

“When he came--for a few moments--Maria, do you believe what I am telling you?”

The Queen walked up and down the room, twisting her fingers together.

“Do you believe I am innocent?” she asked in a low voice. The gold, purple, and crimson of the borders of her dress flashed as she passed and repassed the window.

Maria, with her hand on the pillow, uttered the first lie of her life.

“Yea, I do believe you, Giovanna.”

The Queen looked at her over her shoulder.

“Who will do otherwise?” she said proudly.

Maria suddenly began laughing hysterically.

“Your dress--it is all torn at the side, Giovanna!”

The Queen paused instantly in her walk and gazed at her sister.

“Your beautiful dress!” laughed Maria wildly.

“Sancia tore it,” said the Queen, moistening her scarlet lips. “It will mend… get ready to come to Naples.” She put her hand to her side. “Why did you speak of my dress?” she added.

Maria had fallen back on the pillows.

“It is such a lovely gown,” she answered. “It seemed a pity.”

“Yes,” replied Giovanna. “It is a pity.”

And she abruptly left the room.

Maria d’Anjou sprang on to the floor when she was alone, and her face was distorted with passion.

“Liar!” she sobbed. “Liar! We have all been playing deep you say--but you, by God, you have not won yet--even though you have staked--and lost--your soul----”