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.”