Читать книгу The Mysteries of Florence - George Lippard - Страница 6

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In a lofty apartment of the castle, hung with rich folds of crimson tapestry, and designated from time past memory as the Red Chamber, on a couch of gorgeous hangings, lay the once muscular, but now disease-stricken, Julian, Count of Albarone, shorn of his warrior strength, divested of the glory of his manhood’s prime.

The warm sunlight which filled the place, fell with a golden glow over the outlines of his lofty brow, indented with wrinkles, the long gray hair parted on either side, the eyebrows, snow-white, overarching the clear, bold eyes, that sent forth their glance with all the fire and intensity of youth, rendered more vivid and flame-like by the contrast of sunken eyelid and hollow cheek.

And by the bedside of the warrior, bending like an angel of good, as she ministered to his slightest wants, the form of a fair and lovely maiden was disclosed in the noon-day light, while her flaxen curls fell lightly, and with a waving motion, over the rich bloom of her cheek, glowing with the warmth of fifteen summers, and her full, large eyes of liquid blue, gleamed with the expression of a soul, whose fruits were pure and happy thoughts, the buds and blossoms of innocence and youth.

“Annabel,”—said the warrior, in a voice faint with disease—“Methinks I feel the strength of youth again returning; the sleeping potion of my good brother, Aldarin, has done me wondrous service. Assist me to the casement, child of mine heart, that I may gaze once more upon the broad lands and green woods of my own domain of Albarone.”——

As he spoke, the Count rose on his feet, with a tottering movement, and had fallen to the floor, but for the fair arm of the maiden wound around his waist, while his muscular hand rested upon her shoulder.

“Lean upon my arm, my uncle,—tread with a careful footstep. In a moment we will reach the casement.”

They stood within the recess of the emblazoned window, the warrior and the maiden, while around them floated and shimmered the golden sunshine, falling over the tesselated stone of the pavement, throwing a glaring light around the hangings of the bed, and streaming in flashes of brightness among the distant corners and nooks of the Red Chamber.

’Tis a fair land, niece of mine,—a fair and lovely land.—”

“A land of dreams, a land of magnificent visions, overshadowed by yon blue mountains of romance. Look, my uncle, how the noon-day sun is showering his light over the deep woods that encircle the rock of Albarone—yonder, beyond the verdure of the trees, winds the silvery Arno; yonder are hills and rugged steeps, and far away tower the blue heights of the Apennines!”

“And here, niece of mine, in my youthful prime I stood, when my aged father’s hand had dubbed me—knight. ’Twas such a quiet noon-day hour, on a calm and dream-like day as this, that, from the recess of this window, I gazed upon yon gorgeous land. How the blood swelled in my youthful veins; how dreams of ambition fired my boyish fancy, as the words broke from my lips,—‘Here they ruled, my fathers, in days by-gone, with the iron sword of the Goth; here they reigned as sovereign princes—as Dukes of Florence.’”

“Since that noon-day hour thy sword has flashed in the van of a thousand battles!”

“It has—it has! And yet what am I now? Old before my time, swept away from the path of glory, as I neared the goal! A warrior should never utter a word of complaint—and yet—by the Sacrament of Heaven, I had much rather died with sword in hand, at the head of my hosts, than to wither away with this festering wound on yonder couch. I like not to count the pulsations of my dying heart.”

“Nay, my uncle,—chide not so bitterly. Thou wilt recover—thy sword will again flash at the head of armies!”

“My sword, Annabel, my sword,”—cried the warrior, as his eyes lit up with a strange brilliancy, and his wan features were crimsoned by a ruddy flush.

In a moment, the fair hands of the maiden bore the sword from its resting-place, in a nook of the Red Chamber, with a slow and weary movement, as though the massive piece of iron which she trailed along the marble floor, exceeded her maidenly strength to lift on high.

“It is my sword, it is my sword”—shrieked the warrior, as he flung the robes of purple back from his muscular, though attenuated shoulder, and raised his proud form to its full height—“Look, Annabel, how it gleams in the light! So it gleamed on the walls of Jerusalem, so it shone aloft over the desert-sands of the Syrian wilderness! It will gleam over the battle-field again! Ay, again will the snow-white plume of Julian Di Albarone wave over the ranks of the fray, while ten thousand warriors hail that plume as their beacon-light!”

He swung the sword aloft in the air; his whole form was moved by excitement; every vein filled and every pulse throbbed; his eye flashed like a thing of flame, and his whitened lip trembled with the glorious expression of battle-scorn.

Thrice he waved the sword around his head; but when the impulse of this sudden excitement died away, his eyes lost their flashing brightness, his limbs their vigor, and Julian of Albarone tottered as he stood upon the marble floor, and stepping hurriedly backward, fell heavily upon the couch of the Red Chamber.

“The goblet, fair niece—the goblet on the beaufet. Haste thee—I am faint.”

As the words broke gaspingly from the sick man’s lips, the Ladye Annabel turned hastily to bring the goblet, and as she turned, she beheld the head of Lord Julian resting uneasily on his pillow, while his left arm hung heavily over the side of the couch.

She turned again with trembling footsteps, and hastened to arrange the pillow of the sick warrior. Her fair hands smoothed the pillow of down, and she gently raised his head from the couch.

At the very instant, the tapestry in a dark corner of the Red Chamber rustled quickly to and fro, as a figure, muffled in a sweeping cloak of crimson, emerged into view, and treading across the tesselated pavement, with a footstep like a spirit of the unreal air, it approached the beaufet of ebony, and a white hand, glittering with a single ring, was extended for a moment over the goblet of gold.

The Ladye Annabel placed the head of Lord Julian gently upon the pillow of down.

The glittering ring shone in the sun, as it fell in the goblet of gold, and the hand of the figure, white as alabaster, was again concealed in the thick folds of the crimson robe.

The Ladye Annabel, with her delicate hands, parted the gray hairs from the sick man’s face, and swept them back from his brow.

The figure in robes of crimson, strode with a noiseless footstep across the apartment, and sought the shelter of the hangings of tapestry, with as strange a silence as it had emerged from their folds.

Without taking notice of the white dust that covered the bottom of the empty goblet, Annabel filled it with generous wine, and approached the bedside of her uncle. The Count raised himself from the pillow, and lifted the goblet to his lips. As his wan face was reflected in the ruddy wavelets of the wine, he fixed his full large eyes upon the lovely face of Annabel, with a look of affection, mingled with an expression so strange, so solemn and dread, that it dwelt in the soul of the maiden for years.

He drank, and drained the goblet to the dregs.

“Thank thee—fair niece—thank thee.”

He paused suddenly, his arms he flung wildly from him, a thin, glassy film gathered over his eyes, a gurgling noise sounded in his throat, and he fell heavily upon the couch.

His features were knit in a fearful expression of pain and suffering, his mouth opened with a ghastly grimace, leaving the teeth visible, the lips were agitated by a convulsive pang, and his eyes, sternly fixed, glared wildly from beneath the eyebrows woven in a frown.

“My uncle—my father,”—shrieked the Ladye Annabel, rushing to the bedside—“Look not so wildly, gaze not so sternly upon me. Speak, my uncle, oh, speak!”

Her utterance failed, and an indistinct murmur broke from her lips. Her hands ran hurriedly over the brow of the warrior—it was cold with beaded drops of moisture. She bent hastily over the form of Lord Julian, she imprinted a kiss on his parted lips. She kissed the lips of the dead!

Then the tapestry, the hangings of the Red Chamber, the couch, with its ghastly corse, all swam round her in a fearful dance, and the Ladye Annabel fell insensible on the floor.

The great bell of the Castle of Albarone tolled forth the hour of noon. The shadow of death had been flung across the dial-plate in the castle-yard.

While the thunder-like tones of the bell went swinging and quivering, and echoing among the old castle halls, a footstep was heard without the Red Chamber, and the door was flung suddenly open.

A young Cavalier, with a face marked by frank, open features, locks of rich gold, and an eye of blue, while his handsome form was clad in a gay dress of velvet, entered the apartment, and strode with hurried steps to the couch.

He cast one look at the face of the corse, marked by the ghastly grimace of death; he cast one quick and hasty glance at the form of the Ladye Annabel, thrown insensible along the floor of stone, and then he covered his face with his trembling hands, and his manly form was convulsed by a shuddering tremor, that shook the folds of his blue doublet, as though every sinew writhed in agony beneath the gay apparel.

The heavy sob, which unutterable anguish alone can bring from the heart of a proud man, broke on the deep silence of the room, and the big heavy tear-drops of man’s despair came trickling between the clasped fingers, pressed over his countenance.

“He is dead—my father—he is dead!”

He mastered the first terrible impulse of grief, and raised the swooning maiden from the floor.

“He is dead—my father”—again sounded the husky voice of the Cavalier. “Thou, Annabel, art all that is left to me—I am—”

“A murderer—a parricide!” cried a sharp and piercing voice, that thrilled to the very heart of the cavalier.

He turned hurriedly as he grasped the maiden with his good right arm, he turned and beheld—the Scholar Aldarin.

His glance was fixed and stern, while, with one hand half-upraised, with his thick eyebrows darkening in a frown, he stood regarding the Cavalier with a look that was meant to rend his inmost heart.

“What means this outcry in the presence of the dead?” exclaimed Adrian in a determined tone—“Let our past disputes be forgotten, old man, in this terrible hour. See you not, my father lies stark and dead?”

“Murdered by thee, vile parricide!”—rang out the voice of the Signior Aldarin, as, with a determined step, he advanced to the bedside—“Ho! Guards, I say”—he shouted, raising his voice—“Vassals of Albarone, to the rescue!”

The eye of the young Cavalier brightened, his brow was knit, and his form erected to its full height as he spoke, in a quiet, determined tone.

“Look ye, old man, thou mayst taunt and gibe with thy magpie tongue, as long as the humor pleases thee. My father’s brother need fear no wrong from me—this maiden’s father can fear no harm from Adrian Di Albarone. Heap taunt on taunt, good Signior, but see that this spirit of insult is not carried into action. I am lord in the castle of my fathers!”

“Father, what mean those wild words, these looks of anger?” shrieked the Ladye Annabel, as she awoke from her swoon of terror, and, supported by the arm of Adrian, glanced round the scene—“Surely, my father, you speak not aught against Lord Adrian?”

And as she spoke, the chamber was filled with men-at-arms, in their glittering armor, and servitors of Albarone, all attired in the livery of the house, who came thronging into the apartment, and circled round the scene, while their mouths were agape, and their eyes protruding with astonishment.

Aldarin glanced around the throng, he marked each stalwart man-at-arms, each strong-limbed yeoman of the guard, and then his chest heaved and his eye flashed as he shouted—

“Seize him, men of Albarone, seize the murderer of your lord!”

He pointed to Adrian Di Albarone as he spoke. There was one wild thrill of terror and amazement, spreading through the group, a confused murmur, bursting involuntarily from every lip, and then all was still as death.

Not a man stirred, not a servitor moved, but all remained like statues, clustering round the group in their centre, where Aldarin stood with his slender form raised to its full stature, his arm outstretched and his eye flashing like a flame-coal, while Adrian gathered the Ladye Annabel in his good right arm, and gazed upon the Signor with a look of concentrated scorn.

“Seize him, guards”—again shouted Aldarin—“seize the Parricide!”

There was the sound of a heavy footstep, and the form of the stout yeoman emerged from the group.

“Not quite so fast—marry, my good Signor, not quite so fast”—he cried as he advanced. “By St. Withold, I have followed my old lord to many a hard-fought fight, I have served him by night and by day, with hand and heart, for a score of long years. Shall I stand by, and see his brave son suffer wrong?”

“What means this wild uproar?” exclaimed a calm yet half-indignant voice, as the stately dame of the Lord Di Albarone, yet unaware of her bereavement, crossed the threshold with a lofty step and an extended arm, advancing, with the port of a queen, to the centre of the group. “Vassals—what means this wild uproar? Know ye not that your lord lies deadly sick? Brother Aldarin, I take it ill of you to suffer the clamor! What can our liege of Florence think of ye, vassals, when he beholds ye thus assail the sick-chamber of your lord with noise and outcry!”

The stately dame pointed to a richly attired cavalier, who had followed her into the apartment. He was a well-formed man, with a face marked by no definite expression. His dark hair gathered, in short, stiff curls around a low and unmeaning forehead; his small dark eyes, protruding from his head, seemed to be trying their utmost to outstrip his faintly delineated eyebrows; the nose, neither aquiline, classic, or Judaic, seemed composed of all the varieties of nasal organ; his upper lip was garnished with a portion of the wiry beard that flourished on his prominent chin; his lips were thick and sensual, while his entire face was as inexpressive as might be. The throng bowed low, as they became aware of the presence of the guest of their late lord. They bowed to the Duke of Florence.

“Adrian, my son,” cried the Lady of Albarone, turning to her son in utter amazement, “what means this scene of confusion and alarm?”

Adrian took his mother by the hand, and led her to the couch. He spoke not a word, but waved his hand toward the couch. Her form was concealed for a moment amid the hangings of the bed, and then a shriek of wild emphasis startled the ears of the bystanders.

“He is dead,” exclaimed the Lady of Albarone, in a voice of unnatural calmness, as she again appeared from amid the hangings of the bed, with a face ghastly and livid as the face of death. “Vassals of Albarone, your lord is dead!”

There was a cry of horror echoing through the chamber, and the Lady of Albarone sank, leaning for support upon the arm of her son, while Annabel, in the intervals of her own sobs and sighs, whispered hurried words of consolation in her ear.

Aldarin stood regarding the group with a glance of deep and searching meaning. He gazed upon the vacant features of the Duke, distended by surprise, the countenance of Adrian, marked by a settled frown of indignation, the visage of the Countess, livid as death; and then the fair face of his daughter Annabel, her eyes swimming in tears, the parted lips and the cheek pale and flushed by turns, met the glance of Aldarin, and a strange expression trembled on his compressed lip, and darkened over his high forehead.

“Lady of Albarone,” exclaimed the Scholar, advancing,—“Lady of Albarone, my brother died not through the course of nature, he died not by the hand of disease—he was murdered!”

“Murdered!” repeated the Countess with a hollow echo.

And the Duke took up the word, echoing, with a trembling voice, that word of fear, “murdered,” while the Servitors of Albarone sent the cry shrieking around the nooks and corners of the Red Chamber.

Adrian of Albarone looked around the scene and smiled as if in scorn, but said not a word.

Aldarin made one stride to the couch of death.

“Behold the corse,” he shrieked; “behold the blackened face, the sunken eyelids and the livid lips; behold the ghastly remains of the Lord of Albarone!”

Another stride, and he reached the beaufet. He seized the goblet of gold, and held it aloft.

“Behold,” he cried, “behold the instrument of his murder!”

“God save me now,” shrieked the Countess.—“There has been foul work here—Adrian—oh, Adrian, thy sire hath been poisoned!”

“This is some new mysterie, Sir Scholar,” exclaimed Adrian, with a look of scorn.

The Lady fell insensible, and the goblet rung with a clanging sound upon the marble floor, while from its depths there rolled a small compact substance, encrusted in some chemical compound, white as snow in hue.

The Duke of Florence stooped hurriedly to the very floor, and seized both the goblet and the encrusted substance, with an eager grasp.

“Ha! There is a white sediment deposited at the bottom of this goblet. Albertine, advance; thou art skilled in such mysteries. Tell me, Sir Monk, the nature of this white powder.”

The Monk Albertine, whose dark eyes had for a moment been gleaming over the shoulders of the bystanders, now advanced with a slow and measured footstep, and confronted the Signor Aldarin, with a look full of meaning and thought. Aldarin returned the look, with a keen and searching glance, and their eyes then mingled in one long and ardent gaze, as though each man wished to read the heart of his fellow.

With a look of calmness and perfect self-possession, Albertine turned to the Duke and took the goblet from his hand.

He gazed at its depths for a moment; he was about to speak, when the heart of every man in the Red Chamber was thrilled by a wild and terrific howl, more fearful even than the yell of the dying, which proceeded from among the curtains of the death-couch, and echoed around the apartment.

“That sound,” exclaimed Aldarin, with a nervous start—“That sound is from the couch of death! It means, it means—”

A ruddy glow passed over his pale countenance, and, suddenly pausing, he gazed round the group in silence.

“It is the poor hound of our good Lord;” muttered Robin the Rough, advancing. “The hound, with skin black as death, which Lord Julian brought from Palestine—he is howling over the dead corse of his master. So have I heard him howl for three days past, as the castle-bell tolled the hour of high noon, beside the panels of yonder door. Come hither, brute; come hither, Saladin.”

The hound, black as night, with an eye like fire, came leaping through the throng, and crouched, whining, at the feet of the stout yeoman.

It was, in sooth, a noble hound, with full chest, slender limbs, long neck, and tapering body, marked by all that delicacy of proportion, that beauty of shape, and grace of motion, which tradition ascribes to the bloodhounds of the Eastern lands. The head was like the head of a snake, while the eye seemed almost instinct with a human soul.

“Sir Monk,” cried the Duke, in an imperious tone, “were it not better for thee to tell us at once whether the white powder in the goblet is poison? or shall we wait thy pleasure while thou dost weary thine eyes with gazing at yonder hound?”

The monk Albertine made a solemn inclination of his head, and kneeling on the marble floor in the centre of the group, he struck the edge of the goblet upon the tesselated stone with a quick and sudden motion of his hand.

The diamond-shaped stone of black marble was strewn with the white sediment deposited in the bottom of the goblet.

The hound sprang forward, and while his wild eyes flashed and blazed, his nostrils dilated, and the sable animal snuffed the atmosphere of the Red Chamber, as he leaped quickly around the group.

“He snuffs the smell of human blood!” muttered the stout yeoman.

And while all was intense interest and suspense, while a mingled feeling of surprise and terror and nameless fear ran around the group, while every eye was fixed upon the kneeling form of Albertine, with the goblet upraised in his hand, the hound Saladin passed from man to man, scenting the garments of the bystanders, and glancing wildly from face to face, from eye to eye.

He paused for a moment in front of the Signor Aldarin, and uttered a low whining sound as he gazed in the scholar’s face.

“How long is this mummery to last?” exclaimed Aldarin, advancing with a sudden step—“Tell me, Sir Monk, is thy study over?”

The hound Saladin sprang suddenly aside from the robes of the Signor, and eagerly snuffing the marble floor, approached the monk Albertine, and with a moaning sound licked the white substance from the diamond-shaped stone.

“Is it poison?” asked the Duke, and the interest of the group clustered around became absorbing and intense.

“Some new mysterie of thine, learned scholar!” exclaimed Adrian Di Albarone, with a smile of incredulity. “The man does not live, so false in heart as to place a death-bowl to the lips of a warrior like Julian of Albarone!”

“Is it poison!” exclaimed Albertine, gazing round upon the group—“Behold!”

And as he spoke, the hound Saladin fell stiffened and dead, upon the marble pavement, with a single fearful struggle, a single terrible howl.—His limbs were fearfully distorted, and his eyes were starting from their sockets, while a thin white foam hung round his serpent-like jaw.

A confused cry of horror thundered around the apartment, and then you might have heard the footsteps of the Invisible Death, all was so fearfully silent and still.

“As God lives, my father has been murdered!” shouted Adrian Di Albarone, as the expression of incredulity lately visible in his manly face changed to a look of pallid horror—“Now, by the Sacrament of God, he shall be avenged as never was murdered man avenged before! Who,” he shrieked in a husky voice, turning to the throng—“Who hath done this murder?”

“Sir Duke,” exclaimed Aldarin, as though he had not heard Adrian, “the encrusted substance which fell from the death-bowl may be poisonous—”

The small white ball, which the Duke had absently clenched in his fingers, fell to the floor, and every ear heard a ringing sound as it fell, and every eye beheld the fragments splintering as it touched the floor. The whole substance had vanished, and along the floor there rolled a massive signet ring, glittering with a single ruby.

The Duke of Florence stooped hastily and again grasped the ring; he held it aloft, and shouted, in a tone of amazement and horror—

“It is the ring of the murderer, dropped by accident into the death-bowl! It bears a crest and an inscription—look, Signor Aldarin—canst make out crest or inscription?”

Aldarin replied with a look of horror—

“The crest, ’tis a Winged Leopard—the motto—‘Grasp boldly, and bravely strike!’ Both crest and motto are those of Albarone”—his voice sank to a death-like whisper—“Lord Adrian—behold—it is, it is the signet-ring of Albarone!”

Aldarin turned with a voice of fierce emphasis—

“Thy question has its answer—let the signet-ring tell the tale. Adrian, oh, Adrian,” he continued, as his voice changed with mingled compassion and anguish—“what moved thee to this fearful deed? Oh, that I, a weak old man, should live to see my brother’s son accused of that brother’s murder!”

“This is some damning plot!” calmly responded Adrian, though his chest heaved and swelled with the tempest aroused in his soul—“Tell me, Signor Aldarin, what were the contents of the ‘soothing’ potion administered by thee to the late Lord Julian at daybreak?”

“Tell me, good Albertine, thou didst aid in its composition, and thou canst witness when I gave it to my murdered brother.”

“I aided in its composition—it was harmless—I saw thee minister the potion to Lord Julian.”

“Thou alone, Aldarin, thou alone hast had access to this chamber since daybreak”—spoke Adrian, with his calm eye fixed full on the Signor’s visage—“Now tell me who it was that drugged yon bowl with death?”

“Balvardo, thou didst stand sentinel at yon door from daybreak until high noon—did a soul enter the Red Chamber from the first moment to the last second of thy watch?”

“Not a living man”—muttered the hoarse voice of Balvardo from the crowd—“not a soul save the Ladye Annabel.”

“Search the apartment!” shouted the Duke; “the assassin may be yet lurking in some dark nook or corner!”

The doors were closed, the search commenced. Every nook was ransacked, every corner thrown open to the light, not even the bed of death, with its pillows of down and its hangings of purple, was spared.

While the search was in progress, the Countess of Albarone awoke from her swoon, and striding from the recess of an emblazoned window, where the Ladye Annabel remained glancing with a vacant look over the strange scene progressing in the Red Chamber, she was soon made aware of the fearful crime charged upon her son, the signet-ring and the terrible mystery.

“There is mystery,” she cried with a proud voice, “there is mystery, but—no dishonor!—Who can believe Adrian Di Albarone guilty of so accursed an act!”