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.