The Hill of Venus 29Book the Fifth · The Grail of Love
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Literature · Historical Fiction
The Hill of Venus 29
Book the Fifth · The Grail of Love
GallizierEnglish
Francesco was astir early with the coming of the dawn. The grass was drenched with dew, the woods towered heavenwards with a thousand golden peaks. In the valleys the stream echoed back the light.
Francesco was very solemn about the eyes. He looked as one who took little joy in life, but worked to forget and to ease his heart of its great pain. He watched the sun climb over the leafy hills, saw the clouds trend the heavens, heard the thunder of the streams. There was life in the day and wild love in the woods. Yet from this world of passion and delight he was as an exile, rather a pilgrim, fettered by a heavy vow. He was to bear the Grail of Love through all these wilds, yet might never look thereon, nor quench his thirst.
He met Ilaria in the garden, took her head between his hands, and kissed her upon the lips. She clung close to him and smiled, yet her looks were distraught; she seemed fearful of looking in his eyes.
"I have saddled the horses," he said laconically.
She read the heroism in his heart; the bitterness of the faith she compelled from him. The truth troubled and shamed her.
Francesco strapped the wallet and water flask to his saddle and lifted Ilaria to her steed. Then they crossed the stream and, riding northwards, plunged into the woods.
All that day Francesco strove and struggled with his youth, his heart beating fast and loud under his steel-hauberk. Love was at his side, robed in crimson and green; Ilaria's hair blinded him more than the noon-brightness of the sun. And as for her eyes, he dared not look therein, lest they should tempt him to deceive his honor. The silence enfolded them as though they were half fearful of each other's thoughts.
Francesco spoke little, keeping his distance, as though mistrusting his own tongue. As for Ilaria, the same passionate perverseness possessed her heart, and, though she pitied Francesco, she pitied him silently and from afar.
The following night they lodged in a beech wood, where dead leaves spread a dry carpet under the boughs. Francesco made a bed of leaves at the foot of a great tree. He spread a cloak underneath for Ilaria's comfort, then started away, as though to increase the distance between them.
"Francesco!" she cried suddenly, looking slantwise at his face.
He turned and stood waiting.
"You have given me your cloak!"
"It will keep the chill air from you!"
"What of yourself?"
"I shall not need it!" he said. "I shall not sleep to-night. I will keep watch and guard you! Have no fear!"
She sighed and hung her head as she sat down at the foot of the tree. Francesco's deep and unselfish love shamed her more and more. Yet his very patience with her hardened her discontent. Had he rebelled and conquered her against her will, she would have followed him to the ends of the earth.
Francesco, with a last look, left her there and strode away to a point where he might see, though not speak to her. A full moon climbed in the east and the wide lands were smitten with her mystery. The valleys were as lakes of glimmering mist, the hills like icy pinnacles gleaming towards the stars. The forest glades were white under the moon; the trees tall, sculptured obelisks, their trunks as of ebony inlaid with pearl wherever the moonlight splashed the bark. The silence of the wilderness was as the silence of a windless sea.
Francesco wandered in the woods, his heart full of the strange, haunting beauty of the autumnal night. The stars spoke to him of Ilaria; the trees had her name unuttered on their lips. What was this woman that she should bring such bitterness into his life? Were there not others in the world as fair as she, with lips as red and eyes as deep? Strangeness--mystery! She was one with the moon; a goddess shrined in the gloom of forests dim. White and immaculate, beautifully strange, she seemed as an elf child fated to doom men to despair, to their own undoing.--
Francesco passed back and found her asleep under the trees. He stood beside her and gazed on the sleeping face. There was silent faith in that slumber; trust in the man who guarded her honor. The moonlight streamed on the upturned face, shining like ivory amid the gleam of her dusky hair. How white her throat was, how her bosom rose and fell with the soft white hands folded thereon.
A sudden warmth flooded Francesco's heart; and youth cried in him for youth. Should this beauty be mured in stone, this red rose be hid by convent trees? Was she not flesh and blood, born to love and to be loved in turn,--and what was life but love and desire?
He crept near on his knees, hung over her breathlessly, gazing on her face. God, but to wake her with one long kiss, to feel those white arms steal around his neck! They were alone, the two of them, under the stars. For many minutes Francesco hung there like a man tottering on a crag betwixt sea and sky. Passion whimpered in him; his heart beat fast. Yet even as he crouched over Ilaria asleep, some dream or vision seemed to trouble her soul. Her hands stirred; her lids quivered; the breath came fast betwixt her lips. A shadow as of pain passed over the moonlit face. Francesco, kneeling motionless, heard her utter a low name, saw tears glistening on her cheeks; she was weeping in her sleep.
Pity, the strong tenderness of his nobler self, his great love for the girl of his youth, rushed back into the deeps as a wave from a cliff. He rose up; the shadows flying from his heart as bats afraid of their own flight. He knelt at the foot of the tree and covered his face with his hands.--
On the following evening they saw the sea, a wild streak of troubled gold under the kindling cressets of the west. Beneath them lay a valley full of tangled shrubs and windworn trees. Westward rose a great rock, thrusting its huge black bastions out into the sea. Upon this rock rose the towers and pinnacles of San Nicandro, smitten with gold, wrapped in mysterious vapor. Into the east stretched a wilderness of woods, dun and desolate, welcoming the night.
Francesco and Ilaria rode out from the woods towards the sea, while in the west the sun sank into a bank of burning clouds. The trees were wondrous green in the slant light; the whole land seemed bathed in strange, ethereal glory. San Nicandro upon its headland stood like black marble above the far glimmerings of the sea.
Francesco rode with his eyes fixed on the burning clouds. Ilaria was watching him with strange unrest. Since that first night in the woods he had held aloof from her, had spoken little, had wrapped himself in his iron pride. Yet at times, when his eyes had unwittingly met hers, she had seen the sudden gleam therein of a strong desire. She had watched the color rise in Francesco's sunburnt face; the deep-drawn sighs that ebbed and flowed under the steel hauberk. Though his mouth was as granite, though he hid his heart from her, she knew full well that he loved her to the death. The fine temper of his faith had humiliated, even angered her. Though his silent despair defied her vanity with heroic silence, his courage made her miserable from sheer sympathy and shame.
They crossed a small stream and came to a sandy region, where stunted myrtles clambered over the rocks, and tamarisks, tipped as with flame, waved in the wind. Storm-buffeted and dishevelled pines stood gathered upon the hillock. The region was sombre and very desolate; silent, save for the low piping of the wind.
Neither Francesco nor Ilaria had spoken since they had left the woods and sighted San Nicandro upon its rocky height. Suddenly he pointed with his hands towards the cliffs, the light of the setting sun streaming upon his white and solemn face.
"Yonder lies San Nicandro," he said to her.
There was a species of defiance in the cry, as though the man's soul challenged fate. His heart's cords were wrung with misery. Ilaria quailed inwardly, like one ashamed; her lips quivered; her eyes for the nonce were in peril of tears.--
"Yonder lies San Nicandro," she echoed in an undertone. "There I may be at peace. I shall not forget--"
"Nor I," he said, with grim emphasis.
A narrow causeway curled upwards towards the tower on the rock. The sea had sunk behind the cliff, the sky had faded to a misty gray. Ilaria's eyes were on the walls of San Nicandro and she seemed lost in musings as they rode side by side.
"Francesco," she said suddenly, as they neared the sea, "think not hard of me! Strife and unrest are everywhere. It is better to escape the world!"
"Better perhaps," he said, with his eyes upon the clouds.
"Forget that there is such a woman as Ilaria," she said. "I, too, shall strive to forget the past."--
"Who can forget?" he muttered. "While life lasts, memory lives on!"
They had come to the causeway, where the track wound like a black snake towards the golden heights. Not a sound was there save the distant surging of the sea. The distorted trees thrust out their hands and seemed to cry an eternal "Vale" to the two upon the road.
At the foot of the causeway, Francesco turned his horse.
"Go in peace!" he said, his voice vibrating with inward emotion, her image haunting his heart, like a fell dream at night.
She stretched out a hand.
"Francesco--you will not leave me yet?"
"Ah!" he cried with sudden great bitterness, "is it so easy to say farewell?"
His strong despair swept over her like a wind. She sat mute and motionless upon her horse, gazing at him helplessly as one half dazed. On the cliffs above, San Nicandro beckoned with the great cross above its topmost pinnacle.
Ilaria shivered, struggled with herself, perverse as of yore.
"What am I, that you should desire me?" she said. "I have but little beauty, and am growing old. Leave me, Francesco, and forget me! Forget and forgive! I have no heart to struggle with the world!"
Francesco was white to the lips, as he stiffened his manhood to meet the wrench.
"God knows how I have loved you,--how I love you still!"
"Francesco," she said, leaning towards him from the saddle.
He gave a hoarse cry and covered his face with his hands.
"For pity's sake," he said, "say no more to me! It is enough!"--
They had reached the gate.
He pricked his horse with his spurs, wheeled from her and dashed down the road without a look. His face was as the face of a man who rode to meet his death.
"Francesco!" she cried to him, as she saw him plunge to a gallop, saw the shield between his shoulders dwindle into the night.
"Francesco!" she cried again, a sudden loneliness seizing on her heart. "Francesco, come back! Francesco--"
The cry was in vain, for he would not listen, deeming her pity more grievous than her scorn. Despair spurred him on; the black night called.
Ilaria watched him vanish into the increasing gloom, while on the cliffs San Nicandro stood, like the great gate of death.
