Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN: Konrad of Gottif’s Wife

/The/ evil glow of Vesuvius, against which the flames rose and leaped, the multitudes about him bearing torches, lanterns, candles, showed Ludovic that he was in the street.

He strove to draw himself aside from the surging throng. It was impossible, the King was swept along next the beggar on the tide of panic and despair. Now the clamor of the bells had ceased, the guiding sound of the crowd had gone, and with it their last hope. They took it that God had forsaken the wicked city, since even the churches were overcome. Fighting and shrieking among themselves, they swayed to and fro, trampling each other under foot, pressing themselves to death against the high houses. One, gibbering with fear, dropped his torch. It caught the wooden threshold of a dwelling and the whole leaped into soaring fire. In the glow of it they scrambled, drawn like moths to a candle, yelling for “Light! Light!” Some, laughing horribly, threw themselves in, and the flames closed over them as they called for “Light! Light!” Like a runner bending to the race the fire curled low before the wind and leaped from house to house, till all to the right of Ludovic was scarlet and all to the left black, while the sounds of broken timber and falling walls mingled with the sobbing of the flames.

And now the terror of fire mastered the terror of the dark. The crowd turned and rushed back to the Palazzo San Eligio.

A troop of soldiers on panic-stricken horses dashed past, hurling down and trampling the people in their way.

Ludovic knew them for some of his Hungarians, but they did not see him in the press.

Forced along in the shouting confusion with the flames urging them behind, Ludovic found himself opposite a building blazing with light.

Some one cried out that it was the Castel di Durazzo and that the Duke had drawn the bridge up. Ludovic thought in a sick way of Maria and struggled on. A wild thought had come to him. The dead would rise at Judgment Day. Andreas was buried in San Gonnaro--if he would be there to meet him.… He forced his way to the cathedral. Again a horseman clattered by with a troop behind him. The torchlight fell on the face of Luigi of Taranto riding in the direction of the palace.

Ludovic, abreast of the crowd, entered the church. Tumultuous prayers rose to the roof and the air was thick with incense; a hundred wax candles lit up jeweled altars and gorgeous tombs, soaring columns and splendid carvings.

The King made his way to the chapel beside the altar, where his brother lay, and fell across his gravestone face downward.

This corner was unlit and empty. Ludovic thought himself alone until voices broke across his swounding prayers. He looked up to see the whole church sway together, the columns spring up, the lights break into innumerable stars, the people reel in the incense smoke, and above it all the face of Carola of Bohemia.

He rose to meet it standing.

“Andreas!” he cried, and fell forward.

* * * * *

Ludovic of Hungary opened his eyes on neither Heaven nor Hell, but on the empty church of San Gonnaro, and the placid sunlight about his feet. He dragged himself up, sick, bruised, exhausted, and gazed about him.

The evening sun, pouring through the rich glass, glowed on the tall pillars, the quiet tombs, the splendor of the altars. Ludovic rose and staggered from the chapel into the body of the church. Though there were traces of confusion, benches overturned, articles of clothing, books scattered about, there was not one person left of the hundreds who had crowded there, deafening the ears of the priests.

For the sun had come forth again.

Ludovic leaned against one of the smooth pillars a long while, striving, with a numb brain, to retrace what had occurred.

Had he slain her--had he seen Luigi of Taranto riding by torchlight like a war god toward the palace with soldiers clattering after him?--had that man seized the moment?

Slowly, painfully, he made his way to the door, crept into the porch beneath the semicircle of saints and angels, and stared down upon the city.

The earth had not opened and swallowed it; neither had the sky rent apart and showered fire upon it. The white houses with their colored roofs, the vivid palaces, showed in the softened light of evening. Ludovic gazed at the purple shadows gratefully and drank in the sunshine with a shiver of pleasure.

Many people hurried past. Officials of Naples on horseback, endeavoring to restore order; thieves creeping by with booty snatched in the confusion; tradesmen rushing to protect their shops; dark companies of nuns and monks bearing the wounded to the hospices; solitary passers-by wandering with dazed countenances and idle feet.

None noticed the young man in the tattered silk houppeland who stood in the shadow of the porch with his sick head resting against the stone feet of San Gonnaro.

Once a number of Hungarians in red and blue swept by, and Ludovic called out to them, but they passed without hearing, and he could not marvel at it, for to himself his voice sounded very faint.

Presently, as he waited with tumultuous thoughts and quiet face, another rode by, shading his eyes with a mailed hand on which the sun glittered, and looking from left to right.

“Konrad!” said the King. He came out on to the steps and the horseman drew rein. It was Konrad of Gottif; his helmet hung at his saddle, and his horse was red from the spur.

“The King!” he said, and leaped to the ground. Ludovic descended the steps to meet him. Konrad, holding the bridle in one hand, spoke again. “Up and down have I sought for ye--know ye what has happened at the palace?”

Ludovic shook his head wearily.

“Luigi of Taranto has flung himself and all the men he could gather into the Castel del Nuovo, and they have taken the drawbridge up--” He looked at the King intently. “Swiftly now, my liege, or we lose Naples.”

“He will oppose me?” asked Ludovic with his hand to his head.

“He has threatened to drive us as dogs from Naples--he will marry the Queen.”

The color rose into Ludovic’s swarthy face. Had he not slain the Queen? He dare not speak of it for fear he was distraught.

“Give me your horse,” he said abruptly, and sprang into the saddle. “Now, where are my Hungarians?”

As curtly Konrad answered:

“We have mustered in the Grand Palazzo.”

Before he gathered up the reins, Ludovic put his hand furtively to his side. His sword was gone. He had left it in Giovanna’s chamber. Certainly she was not alive to marry Luigi of Taranto.

With Konrad of Gottif at his horse’s head, he rode to the Grand Palazzo.

The sight of his men, the sound of their shouts as they saw him, the banners of Hungary against the evening sky, the blazoned arms, the pomp and glitter, roused Ludovic into his former gayety. Fear and horror had fled like phantoms before the sun. He galloped along the line of his soldiers, smiling at them.

“Shall we lose Naples?” he flashed to Konrad. “No!” and he stopped before one of the knights.

“Give me your sword,” he said, and thrust it into his belt. “Now am I armed again! Glory to God!”

They shouted furiously for their King in the tattered silks, and Ludovic cast his sparkling eyes to where Carola of Bohemia sat on a white palfrey close to the straining banner poles that bore the Hungarian eagles.

Like the first star when the storm clouds have passed was her pale fair face to him. Giovanna, Maria, Sancia were but memories dim with horror, while she, with eyes that spoke of home--she who crossed the seas to him after he had left her for his Italian bride--she who had been a child with him. His weary senses dwelt with an exquisite pleasure on her gentle presence. He turned the white horse toward her, in anticipation of her sweet welcome.

As he came alongside her, he spoke, in his marvelous soft voice:

“Carola--were you frightened?”

She looked at him straightly. Above her head the flag made a strong, fluttering sound.

“My husband was with me,” she said simply. “Yet even then, my liege, was I a little afraid.”

A great faintness came over Ludovic. He felt as he had felt when he stood in the church porch and idly watched the crowd hurrying past.

“Your husband?” he repeated.

“Konrad of Gottif,” answered Carola. “We have been wed these two months.”

For a second the King was silent, then he laughed. “I give you joy”--then he flushed--“of the better man,” he added, “though ye might have had a throne.”

Then he rode up to Henryk of Belgrade, and his hazel eyes were the eyes of a soldier.

“I have done with the women, Henryk,” and he laid his hand on the other’s shoulder. “Now,” and his breath came quickly, “I play with Kingdoms.”