Читать книгу The Sword Decides! - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 9

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"There is a moral in everything," said the dwarf; "and the moral of a garden is, don't build a house." And he blinked up at the blue sky, tempered by the thousand blossoms of an acacia tree.

It was mid August, and the gardens of the Castel del Nuovo were flowering from end to end; everywhere roses, lilies, gladiolus, myrtle, citron, chestnuts, the dark lines of cedars, and the grey-green of poplars.

Under a trellis covered with vines and white and purple roses, was a marble seat, set against the low wall that looked over the town and bay of Naples; a marble pavement was underfoot, beautifully checked with the waving, delicate shadows of the grapes and roses and strong flecks of pure sunlight. The dwarf, dressed in a becoming purple, sat with crossed legs and ate great red plums with relish. Carlo di Durazzo, Duke Duras, lounged on the marble seat and gazed from the shade into the sunlight; he was clothed in satin of a golden colour, and his shoes were the hue of rubies. He looked at Naples, the white houses with the sloping pink and blue roofs, with the palms between; then the bay shimmering from purple in the front, where the boats were drawn along the beach, to opal by the distant line of Sorrento; and he said, without turning his head:

"With your leave, messer, if there be a moral in everything, what is the moral of the marriage of the Queen?"

"That the man who marries without seeing his wife will die without seeing his funeral," answered the dwarf.

The Duke turned his pretty face.

"Certainly Andreas is a fool," he assented. "But he is troublesome—perhaps dangerous,—and I propound to you, messer, what will the Queen do with him?"

A little breeze wafted some of the acacia blossoms on to the dwarf's lap; he played with them as he answered.

"Can the Queen do anything with nothing?" he asked. "Surely he is but, as one might express it, a cipher—even the figure nought." And he sucked a plum with great gravity.

"Nevertheless," said the Duke, "he has his envoys at Avignon, and there is always Hungary."

The dwarf's little red eyes twinkled.

"The illustrious and mighty Conte Raymond has also his envoys at Avignon," he answered. "And I have a presentiment that his Holiness will decide for the cause that is uppermost."

"You are a gentleman of exceeding wisdom," said the Duke. "But I wish that you would not eat so many plums; they are very bad for you."

The dwarf selected another.

"They are really very nice," he remarked; "will not your magnificence try one? But, as I was saying, the Pope—"

"The Pope," said Duras, "would certainly call this gluttony, which is one of the seven deadly sins."

"Well," answered the dwarf, "when I am sick I will practise patience, which is one of the seven deadly virtues, and so I shall be equally balanced between hell and the angels. As I was saying, the Pope is not likely to decide for Andreas, our illustrious and unfortunate King."

The Duke laid an elegant hand on the warm marble wall, and watched how the sun struck fire out of the emerald ring he wore.

"I am sorry for Andreas," he remarked. "My cousin Giovanna humiliates him very cruelly."

The dwarf nodded. "Silvestro, the King's page, told me that the other day, when the Queen revoked his order to free a Hungarian prisoner and shut the council doors in his face when he came to protest, he went to his room and sobbed in an agony of rage—cried like a child, Silvestro said."

"It is remarkably foolish to take things so heavily," said Duras. "But, after all, he is only a barbarian."

The dwarf lifted his hunched shoulders. "But a barbarian has feelings, Magnificence. They say that he and the Queen have not spoken together since the day of his arrival. I saw them meet yesterday—he was going hunting—"

"He always is—the poor youth has nothing else to do," interrupted the Duke.

"Well, he was going hunting; he was waiting in the hall, and there was Konrad of Gottif with him, and a couple of dogs. They were talking together, when of a sudden in came the Queen with a great company of ladies. Andreas grew red in the face and made as if he would avoid them, but they were upon him before he could leave the room. The Queen stopped, and her eyes travelled over him; and, 'Going hunting, my lord?' she said, and the ladies behind her stared at him as if he had been a boor from the fields.

"'Yes,' he answered, and he coloured more fiercely up to the roots of his hair.

"The Queen laughed, making it plain she despised him for an awkward boy.

"'An you are not more successful in the hunt than you are in politics—or love, my lord,' she said, 'we need not weep the prey you chase,' and she laughed again, throwing her arm round the neck of Contessa Terlizzi, who said, 'But herons are more easily caught than thrones or hearts, my Queen'; and at this all the ladies laughed and swept out of the room. The King stood silent until they had gone (though he showed in his face how he had been struck); then he burst out to his friend:

"'Konrad—is this bearable?'

"'Go back to Hungary,' was the answer; and then the King flung from the room wildly, saying, 'God, no!—I bide my time!'"

The Duke stretched his limbs.

"It would be curious," he remarked, "if the Pope did recognize his claims; for, considering Naples is his fief, were he to send a bull of coronation the nobles would desert my fair cousin—the positions would be reversed."

"And he would take a terrible revenge. Therefore hedge, Magnificence, until the answer comes from Avignon."

The Duke yawned. "Saints' name, messer, I would rather see you eat more plums than see you suck the stones," he said.

"Unfortunately, as there are no more plums, I have no choice," sighed the dwarf. "Does your Magnificence object to my cracking the stones and abstracting the kernels?

"Immensely," answered the Duke. "And you are quite sufficiently like a monkey."

"It is generous of you to say so," grinned the dwarf. "I wish I could find your Magnificence sufficiently like a man."

"What is your idea of a man?" asked the Duke pleasantly.

"Raymond de Cabane," said the dwarf.

"Maria! the son of a slave and a washerwoman!"

The dwarf rose and put his plum stones in his pocket. "I will take my leave." He bowed his squat body and moved away into the sunlight; the Duke yawned and looked across the bay.

The sheer dazzle of the sunlight was like a veil over everything. On the marble pavement swayed the faint blue shadows of the roses and the vine; the acacia tree whispered continually in the breeze blowing from Capri, and tall lilies growing without tapped at the trellis-work; against the burnished turquoise sky the cedars showed black and the poplars a shuddering silver grey; two flashing white doves flew across the arbour.

Putting the flowers aside came Maria d'Anjou in a long mauve gown; she carried a zither of tortoiseshell and ivory, and her bright chestnut hair lay heavy in the nape of her slender neck.

She seated herself beside the Duke, who gazed at her tenderly.

"They are going hunting, Carlo," she said. "Will you not go with them? It looks as if you stayed away to flout the King, as the others do."

Duras smiled.

"You are sorry for Andreas, cousin?"

"For all of us," she said, and drew a sharp breath. "And I think the King is served shamefully. What has he had but mortification, and insult?—yea, and from the servants."

"I wonder," pondered the Duke, smiling at her—"I wonder had it been different if he had wooed the Queen?"

"She is cold as ice," said Maria.

"Yet, I think it had been different. Where do they hunt to-day?"

"Towards Capua—Melito, I think."

"Sweet cousin, I am too lazy to go—I would sit here and have you sing."

Her blue eyes became pleading.

"Carlo, he is so wretched. He has no one save his Hungarians to go with him; Conte Raymond lords it over him;—if you would go, gentle cousin, it would give me pleasure."

"Why, then, it will be a pleasure to me," he answered, rising. "If I do not go, at least before them all I will offer him my best falcon; is that enough?"

She turned her beautiful head to look at him.

"I am very grateful, sweet cousin," she said, and gave him her hand.

He kissed it and turned reluctantly away from her; she watched his gold clothes glitter into the distance, then, resting her elbows on the marble walls, looked over Naples and sighed.

Presently she took up the zither and tuned it. Music and the garden were the best company she knew; all her peace and happiness had come to her when she sat alone in the sunlight under the trees, with the flowers to right and left.

With an absorbed, dreaming face, she began to sing; her low, sweet voice rose exquisitely through the stillness.

"Orpheus sang to a silver lute,

Amid Arcadian trees,

When all the world had fallen mute

To listen at his knees.

"The winds that round Mount Ida blow

At his commands were still;

The winged gods circled low

Round that dim Thracian hill.

"Then, ever blue the tender sky,

And ever green the field;

Mars laid his scarlet armour by,

And rested on his shield."

Her head bent over the zither till a loose strand of hair swept the strings.

"Rose-wreathed the smiling hours sped,

Rose-wreathed the evening died;

And never a blossom drooped its head

Save when young Orpheus sighed.

"Thus I to the grey clouds complain

In an age of mean renown,

Watching the straight April rain

Silvering Pisa's narrow town."

Maria d'Anjou sighed, her voice trembling on the next notes.

"Too soon has Orpheus fallen dumb,

Too soon the gods are dead;

When shall another singer come

To say what Orpheus said?"

The zither dropped from her hands; her soft, mournful eyes gazed vacantly across the distant town; she was wrapped in her own dreaming thoughts. She sighed, looked round, and in an instant was back in reality, the colour in her cheeks.

Holding back the vines that impeded him stood the Conte Raymond looking at her.

"Good morrow," she said gravely.

He came with his slow, heavy step towards the marble seat; as always, he was composed in manner and lowering in looks.

"I have been hoping to find you, Madonna, alone."

Hate of him showed in quivering nostrils and lowered lids as she turned her head away.

"What is your wish with me?" she asked wearily.

His deep-set eyes flashed to her averted face.

"The Queen has told ye, perchance"—his swarthy hand fingered the roses on the balustrade—"that she will be crowned in mid September."

She would not look round; her foot tapped the marble.

"Scorn me as you like, Maria," he said quietly, "by then our marriage contract will be signed—I shall not wait for my reward."

Her shoulders heaved a little.

"Conte, your presence is unendurable to me, and your talk wild." She lifted her face now, and showed it pale with anger. "I will wed with the King of Hungary or with no man."

"Why," he scowled, "we waste words. Do you think ye will be freer to chose your husband than your sister was?"

She rose so suddenly that he fell back a pace.

"Ye are a bold man," she said, with her slim hand to her side. "But I, as well as Giovanna, am of Anjou—and ye have forgot, perchance, the King."

His wrath rose to meet hers; but he had himself well in hand—it showed only in the pale swarthiness of his cheek.

"I am a fool to speak to ye," he said sombrely. "Ye cannot thwart my designs, and the King—"

"Well?" she said, smiling splendidly; "the King!—my betrothed's brother: what if the Pope decided in his favour?—then there would be neither victory nor reward for you, Conte."

An extraordinary look darkened his eyes.

"Do ye think that would stop me?" he asked; then checked himself as if he had disclosed too much. "But I mistake to talk of politics," he said, and smiled unpleasantly. "Amuse yourself with your songs and flowers, Maria—September will come apace." He raised his velvet cap and was gone, heavily, through the vines.

"When Andreas is King indeed," said Maria under her breath—"and when Ludovic of Hungary be come, that man"—she bit her lip—"that man shall answer for this talk to me!"

Yet even while she spoke she was afraid.