Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT: The Queen’s Second Husband

/Giovanna/ lay in her great bed. Her head rested on a silk pillow with a heavy gold fringe, and the coverlet, striped green and purple, was drawn up to her pointed chin.

The room was shielded from the sun by purple velvet curtains and lit by red lamps on hanging chains. By the bedside sat Sancia di Renato with a great painted book on her knee and an ivory and jasper rosary in her hand; both, it seemed, forgotten, for she looked across the room with musing eyes, as if she traced pictures of her own on the dark walls.

From the next room drifted the scent of the lilies and pale gleams of sunshine, and from outside came heavy, unusual sounds, the metallic clink of hammers, the thud of wood on wood, men’s voices, eager and strained.

Presently Sancia rose, put aside the book and the rosary, and stood looking down at the Queen.

Giovanna opened her eyes.

“What are those noises?” she said. She had not spoken since Ludovic of Hungary had thrust her from his knees.

“The engines they bring into the palace,” answered Sancia softly, “and the masons fortifying the walls.”

“I have heard them for a long time,” said the Queen, and she closed her eyes again.

A sudden chatter of birds flying past fell across the hammer strokes, and Sancia shuddered.

“The Prince of Taranto is in the palace,” she whispered. “And you have been sick these many days.”

“Naples, Naples,” murmured the Queen, and did not open her eyes.

Sancia crept to the door of the antechamber. An old man sat half asleep before a table spread with bottles and glasses, and two women were spreading herbs and roots to dry in the sun.

“The Queen hath spoken,” whispered Sancia. “Will one tell the Prince?”

The physician roused himself with a start.

“Did I not say so?” he muttered, “on the third or seventh day, according as Jupiter is in conjunction with Mars--well, keep the sun off her----”

“And tell the Prince,” repeated Sancia. “He did most earnestly desire it.”

Softly she returned to the bed, took up her book and rosary, and sank into her old place.

The steady rise and fall of the hammers, the impression they created of sunshine and life outside this darkened sick chamber, the Queen’s low breathing, and the red flicker of the lamps, swayed her senses into dreaminess.

Suddenly Giovanna moved and the weary violet eyes opened again.

“Who rules in Naples?” she asked.

“You are the Queen,” said Sancia.

For a while she was silent as a child thinking over a problem, then she spoke again:

“Where is my cousin Ludovic?”

Sancia winced. Giovanna’s face and voice were so expressionless, it seemed she must have forgotten.

“He holds half Naples,” answered Sancia, in a low tone. “Against the Prince of Taranto--he fled hence in the great darkness--he----”

Giovanna did not notice the unfinished sentence.

“And Maria?” she whispered, turning her head on the pillow.

“She is the Duchess di Duras now.”

The Queen turned her head away again, as if she had not heard.

“It is surely the springtide,” she murmured, “for the hammer strokes sound so clearly and the flowers smell so sweet--like the violets round the villas at Baiae.” As she spoke one of the women came to the outer door.

“The Prince would see the Queen.”

Giovanna caught the words, softly as they were spoken. “Bring him to me,” she said. “Oh, aye, bring him here.” She sat up in bed. Her heavy silk nightgown, edged with fur, fell open at the throat, and her auburn hair twisted on to her shoulders. Then she dropped back against the pillows, with her frail white hands on the coverlet.

“She remembers nothing,” thought Sancia, and she said:

“Shall I bind up your hair, Madonna, and put some robe on you?”

“It was a beautiful dress,” whispered Giovanna; “with gorgeous embroideries on it--peacocks, apples and flowers. Do you remember the thirteenth day of September? But bring him up.”

Sancia shrank away from the bed. Outside a quick step sounded, and Luigi of Taranto appeared in the doorway. Over his armor he wore a loose scarlet robe and his heavy face was set and stern.

He crossed at once to the bed and held aside the curtains.

“Oh, you!” said Giovanna. “You!”

He lifted her hand from the shimmering coverlet.

“Do you know me?” he said earnestly.

A troubled look passed across her face.

“Yes,” she assented, but half fearfully.

He was silent a while, looking at her, and his gray eyes grew hard with calculation. The lamplight flickered in the black damascening of his armor, where it showed on the opening of his robe.

Sancia, standing against the wall, watched them--the great knight and the lady on the vast bed, his roughly shaped hand holding her fragile fingers.

“Listen,” said the Prince at length. “I have saved you from your enemies--do you understand, Giovanna?”

She nodded.

“Ludovic of Hungary, who is no great King after all,” and he smiled grimly, “I have already driven to the very gates of Naples. I seized the palace, and with it great quantities of his treasure. The people, hating the foreigner, are gathering round me again. Do you understand, Giovanna?”

“Yes,” she said faintly.

“And because of these things,” he continued, “I shall marry you, and the Pope shall recognize me as King of this land. And it is the only way for you, even if you mislike me, for you are in my power. But I swear by Christ, you need not mislike me, for I like you as well as ever I liked a woman, and, if you do not cross me, I will make life pleasant for you.” At the end of this speech he let go of her hand and leaned against the bedpost, frowning at her, and she turned her face to the pillow, while her long throat was caught with sobs.

“Fetch the notary,” said Luigi to Sancia, and when she had gone he bent over the Queen and touched her shoulder.

“My kingdom,” she moaned.

“Would ye rather Hungary had your kingdom?” he answered fiercely. “Ye shall rule it with me--for truly I like you well.”

At that she sat up and faced him, putting aside the tangle of her hair. Under the heavy silk her shoulders heaved.

“I slew my first husband,” she said wildly.

Luigi of Taranto looked at her somberly. “I knew it--always. Do you think I am afraid? I am not such an one as Andreas.”

She wrung her hands together.

“Oh, how I hated him! A boy--to snatch my crown from me! Yet it was black sin, and Ludovic--” She stopped as if her memory had suddenly failed her.

“Ludovic,” repeated the Prince. “What is he to you? He dallied round you. He has a fair face, God wot, yet I think he is a man of little worth, or he had settled this before--come, do you care for him?”

“For none,” she answered dully. “Least of all for him.” Then her face suddenly brightened. “Luigi, he was a fool, was he not? Finely I cajoled him, and then--ah, what has happened to me? I cannot think--” She sat up, with her fingers to her lips, staring at him.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I know--and some others. This King knows, does he not? But what I found on the floor in yonder chamber I burned. He has no proof. He came for his vengeance and has failed--by God, I think so--and I shall know how to deal with defamers of my wife. Once more, do ye understand me--that ye are safe?”

She turned her head away and would not speak, but when the notary entered with his parchments, she put her name to the marriage contract, and wrote it steadily beside her cousin’s signature, and, at his request, they brought her royal seal and she set that on it. But when they had gone she put her face in her hands and wept.

“Am I a footstool to your ambition?” she sobbed. Then, “Have I lost my kingdom?”

Luigi of Taranto stood watching her, frowning and biting his forefinger. On the other side of the bed Sancia waited, with a weary face.

“Will you arise?” he said at length. “I have the Legate in the chapel to marry us.”

She looked up at him with wild, wet eyes.

“I did read of a man once--’twas in a great clasped book--and he sinned, sinned, yet for nothing. And still he served the ends of others, sinning deeper, and when he came to die, he was poor and old. The Devil fetched him, and he said, I might have lived honorably--for ye are a bad paymaster.” The tears rolled slowly down her face, as she stared at him blindly.

“Ye are weak,” he said. “Where had ye been without me? At the mercy of Hungary’s tardy vengeance.”

She choked back her tears.

“Let me arise,” she said. “Help me.”

She laid her hand on his arm and rose, setting her bare feet on the green carpet of the bed steps. She sat so, with her hand to her forehead, and Sancia brought her scarlet velvet shoes.

Silent the Prince took them, and, kneeling, put them on the Queen’s feet, while Sancia folded a golden silk robe about her.

She sat quite still, until the Prince got onto his feet. Then she rose also, and tried to walk, but, being very weak, she fell against the hard armor on his breast, and lay there, silent for shame and rage at her helplessness.

He set her in a chair by the bed.

“Would you have your sister see you?” he asked. “For Carlo and I are in league.”

She shook her head. “It was black sin,” she said, “but I hated him. Why am I always driven into sin? I would be Queen. Queen! Why”--she flashed a desperate look on him--“did I not take his kisses because he would make me Queen? What was he to me--or any man?” She put her hand to her throat, gathering the silks together. “Did I not promise Maria to Raymond if he would make me Queen?”

“I will do that for you,” answered the Prince. “Will I not clear your kingdom of the invaders? Ludovic would not leave you your throne--now he knows.”

“Aye,” she cried feverishly. “He knows--and all the world beside! Yet, how I kept my secret--though it made me mad----”

“These things are not things to speak of,” he answered, and made to bend closer to her, but she held him off with a weak resistance by her feeble hand on his arm.

“Oh, you!” she said. “I never thought of you--you seemed to me an unambitious man.”

“God wot, I waited.”

“And now,” she answered, “ye snatch the greatest prize of all--my Kingdom!”

He moved away from her somberly.

“Bring her to the chapel,” he said to Sancia, and was gone.

Giovanna sat slackly, her long fingers playing with her hair.

“My cousin Luigi,” she murmured. “Why, I am very tired, and the flowers smell so sweet--if I could remember!”

Sancia crossed the room, with a pale gleam of yellow draperies in the gloomy light, and in her hand a girdle of plates of gold set with amethyst, that she clasped round the passive Queen.

As she was turning again, Giovanna caught her by the white wrists and held her with a sudden strength.

“Could we escape?” she whispered hurriedly. “If I could get among the people they might shout for me as they did when the old King died--I might be Queen again.”

“It is not possible,” answered Sancia. She thought she had never seen the Queen’s upturned face look so lovely as it did now, softened by tears.

The golden girdle heaved under Giovanna’s bosom. “What he said he would do for me! You--have you ever loved?”

“Let me free,” breathed Sancia. “Aye, I have loved and repented.”

“And been loved?” questioned the Queen.

“I know not,” shuddered Sancia, and dragged her hands away.

“Love! It is but a word!” cried Giovanna. “Nothing he did for me--nothing!” She leaned forward and clung to the other’s arm with cold fingers. Her voice changed and sank.

“I have lain so long--listening to the hammers, and I fancied they were building my tomb. See! they make it splendid! Let me lie with a crown on my head, and a scepter in my hand; under my feet a lion, and beside me a shield, thick with lilies of the Angevin Kings----”

She paused, then whispered:

“For, even if my soul is in Hell, let my body be housed magnificently with enamel, gems and carved angels. So I may lie a thousand years--a crowned Queen!”

“I deck you for a wedding, not a funeral,” answered Sancia quickly.

Giovanna let go of her.

“My wedding! When they married me before, I clenched my hand that I might not strike his proxy in the face, but the men stood close as gathered spears about me to see it done. These men--shall we be never better than their tools!”

She rose up, drawn to her full height, held her hand out and looked at it. “I took his ring from off that finger as they slew him outside my door,” she said passionately. “And shall my cousin Luigi bind me to slavery with another ring?”

“Much misery has distracted you,” answered Sancia, trembling. “Yet speak more quietly, or I, also, shall run mad.”

The fire died out of the Queen’s eyes. She sat down in a quiet silence and let Sancia dress her hair, put gold on her neck and arms, and fasten an ermine côtehardie over the yellow silk.

Leaning on Sancia’s arm, she came passively to the chapel at the end of the corridor. Soldiers were gathered round the entrance, and she looked at them strangely.

Luigi of Taranto stood by the little altar, with his hand on the gilded rails, talking to the Legate. The light from the rose window that glowed in overlapping petals of purple, gold, orange and Turkish blue, fell upon his close red hair and scarlet mantle, casting a dusky shadow behind him.

Into this glory of color, the Queen crept, holding her gown off her shoes.

The Legate turned to her: “Is this by your full consent, my liege?” he said, surveying her wisely through half-closed eyes.

The color slowly rose into her face. A wild thought of defying them shook her for a moment. Yet, if she did, they would drag her before the court at Avignon. She looked at her cousin’s quiet gray eyes, at his clasp of the altar rails. She moistened her lips, and said lifelessly:

“Yea.”

The chapel was full of nobles and their wives, bribed by some means to follow the Prince of Taranto. Her mad eyes swept the circle of their faces, then she sank on her knees on the violet cushion placed for her.

Luigi of Taranto knelt beside her. She heard his armor strike the flags. She looked at his hand, still clasped on the rails.

The pale notary unrolled his parchment, and commenced reading the marriage contract between the very illustrious Luigi, Prince of Taranto, and Giovanna d’Anjou, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem and Sicily. This was followed by the grand almoner’s reading of the apostolical letters (supplied on his own authority by the Legate, and yet lacking confirmation from Avignon) of His Holiness, which sanctioned the marriage and gave his well-beloved son and daughter his benediction. At that, the Legate put the Queen’s hand in her cousin’s, and he helped her to her feet as he rose himself.

“Before God and man,” Luigi said, in a strong voice, half turning, “this is my wife.”

“And this is my husband,” Giovanna replied dully.

The gathered witnesses began leaving the chapel. Giovanna took no heed of them. She was leaning against the wall, and, by the shimmering of the yellow silk above her broad girdle, it might be seen how pantingly her breath came. There were white roses on the altar, and she had picked up one from the steps. She looked at it now, then presently dropped it, on purpose, it seemed.

Luigi of Taranto, pausing in his conversation with the Legate, stooped, picked up the flower, and gave it her.

She took it, moved a little forward, and dashed it in his face with such force that the fine petals were scattered over his robe and armor, and the stem snapped in her hand.

There were many curious eyes watching her, upright, with a white face and furious, narrow glance, and him, gazing at her quietly and slowly, flicking the petals from his sleeve.

Then, suddenly, she turned from his steady eyes, put out her hands, and fell down by the wall as if an arrow had touched her heart.

“Take her away,” said the Prince.

In silence they took her up, two of the women at her head, and two of the men at her feet.

Luigi fell into his trick of biting his forefinger as he watched her carried out. One of the red shoes had been dropped, and he saw her white foot against her gown, and her white face against her hair, all stained red from the scarlet blazonry of the window.

After a little silence, he, also, left the chapel.

Without the door stood Sancia. First he passed her, but, looking back, retraced his steps and spoke to her.

“Do you not desire, Madonna, to return to Padua?”

“I am content here,” she answered.

“Ye have been very devoted to the Queen,” he said, as if he could not understand. “I would not keep you here when you are not of this Kingdom. Truly there will be great fighting, and, if you will, I can see you safely out of Naples.”

She lifted her lovely face, and fixed on him large, earnest eyes.

“What is my life to me?” she answered. “You know, I think, that I betrayed the Queen, who was my mistress and had not harmed me--God wot, I would a little make amends.”

“The Queen,” he said softly, “does not remember you, nor what you did. Something I learned--from Maria, I do think,” and he looked down at the ground, “we cannot judge one another. I--who have always known--do not rate her the less for this”--he broke off--“nay, if you will, depart in friendliness.”

“Let me stay,” she said.

He frowned. “Why, if you will.” He went from her heavily. At the end of the corridor he paused and listened.

Dull, thick sounds filled the palace. He flung himself down the stairs. Half-way, he met some running up.

“The Hungarians!” they cried.

He swept off the scarlet robe on to the stairs and shouted for his helmet.

Steadily came the noise of the catapult and battering ram, the distant cry of the enemy.