CHAPTER II

THE PLEDGE

In the antechamber of the elder Villani’s sick-room, during the talk
between father and son, the monks had quietly waited the termination
of the interview. The Prior sat alone on a settle in a corner, his
tonsured head bent so low that his face was unreadable, while with
nervous fingers he stroked the cloth of his brown robe. One of the
monks was engaged in expounding some dogma to his companions who
obviously paid little heed to his words. A strange friar, who had on
the previous night arrived from Rome, sat with the confessor of San
Cataldo, but neither of them spoke. They, too, seemed to be listening
for the sound of footsteps in the corridor. The two mediciners, more
at ease, sat murmuring professionally between themselves, careless of
the mental unrest of their colleagues of the soul. None in the room,
save the strange friar, knew what the elder Villani was saying to his
son, but there were few even among these world-strange men who had not
guessed the truth long ago.

The minutes dragged. The floating wicks in the quaint stone lamps
wavered and flickered restlessly in their sconces, while the uneven
light from the cresset-lantern, hung in the centre of the chamber,
cast distorted shadows over floor and ceiling. To all present the wait
was tedious. To the strange friar whose eyes roamed ever again towards
the sick-chamber, it seemed interminable, and ever and anon the monk
at his side leaned uneasily towards him. “Gregorio Villani will find
the task no easy one. He had better left it to one of us!”

Nevertheless, when their wait was ended, and the leather hangings of
the door were raised by a white hand, all in the room were startled,
and gazed alert with wondering eyes, and lips on which the words had
died.

It was a strange apparition that entered. For a moment each was aware
of a slender figure which seemed to sway even as it grasped the
curtain, of a face ghastly white, framed in a wealth of dishevelled
hair, of a voice whose sound seemed but the hoarse whisper of a ghost,
as he staggered towards the strange friar.

“My father desires your presence.”

The monk arose quickly, glancing furtively at the face of the youth,
then exchanging a swift glance with the Prior. At the same time one of
the mediciners started up.

With an unspoken “Not yet!” the Prior waved him back, and Francesco
followed the strange friar from the room.

A swift repugnance against his companion, seemingly born of the
moment, filled the youth, as side by side they traversed the short
passage-way. At the door of the sick-room, which they were about to
enter, the monk suddenly paused and turned.

“You have consented?” he whispered.

Francesco’s lips formed an answer, barely audible, but which the monk
at his side caught at once.

Something akin to a look of involuntary admiration stole over his face
and something akin to a gleam of pity flickered in his eyes. The
admiration was for the mental powers of the elder Villani, which, it
seemed, not even approaching Death could vanquish. The fleeting pity
was for the son. But not unmingled with both was a look of triumph for
himself.

On entering the sick-room the monk stepped at once to the side of the
dying man. Gregorio Villani’s cheeks were slightly flushed, his eyes
were brilliant, but his voice was weaker than it had been.

“Francesco has granted my last wish,” he said, looking searchingly
into the friar’s face. “Have you the briefs that are required for his
going?”

The friar produced a bundle from his cassock, which he placed on the
bed. Gregorio Villani took up the first scroll.

“To this one, containing the pledge, Francesco shall put his name,” he
said, with a glance at his son. “The second is a letter from my own
hand, to the monastery and chapter, which His Holiness has decreed for
him. The third is the special dispensation, granting friar’s order to
Francesco. Treasure it well, my son, for it will prove the greatest
boon of your life! And now, in presence of this witness, you shall
sign your pledge to me and to the Church!”

He looked imploringly at the youth, who stood by with pale face and
eyes from which every gleam of gladness had faded. When Francesco made
no reply, the strange monk stepped to a table on which there were
scattered sundry writing utensils, and dipping a pen in a composition
serving as ink, brought it to Francesco.

The latter stared for a moment from the friar to his father, his eyes
ablaze. Then he reached out, snatched the pen from the monk’s hand and
dashed it on the floor.

“Does not my word suffice?” he spoke hoarsely, catching at his throat
like a drowning man.

“The flesh is weak and temptation ever near,”–the strange friar spoke
in the elder Villani’s stead, as he picked up the pen with a sidelong
glance at the sick man. There was to be no hesitation, no wavering
now. The moment lost might never again return!

“You must sign the pledge,” the sick man, turning to his son,
interposed tremulously. His own misgivings ran apace with those of the
strange monk.

Snatching the pen from the latter’s hand, Francesco bent over the
scroll and scratched his name barbarously under the pledge. Then, from
his nerveless fingers, it dropped anew upon the floor.

The older man, who had been watching him narrowly, heaved a sigh of
relief.

“You have assured my eternal salvation and your own,” he said in a
weak, toneless voice. “Retire now, my son, that this holy friar and I
may arrange the details of your going.”

A hot flush suffused Francesco’s face as he straightened himself to
his full height.

“Of my going?” he said slowly. “Surely I am not yet to go! Am I not to
wait at least until–“

“My death?” finished the elder Villani, looking at him with piercing
intentness. “You shall not have to wait long. I shall never see the
light of another day!”

Francesco struggled to suppress a moan which rose to his lips. Then he
covered his face with both hands. His nerves were giving way. Further
resistance was impossible. Mentally and physically worn, he was
encountering a will, pitiless, uncompromising. He felt further
argument to be useless. And the strange friar, noting his condition,
knew that the victory was theirs.

He placed a scroll in the elder Villani’s hands.

“The absolution from His Holiness,” he said, with a low, solemn voice,
intended, nevertheless, to be heard by Francesco. “The conditions are
fulfilled.”

Francesco glanced from one to the other: he understood.

He had been sold; his youth, his life bartered away, like the life of
a slave.

Fearing an outburst, the elder Villani turned to his son.

“You had best retire and seek your rest, Francesco,” he said in a
voice strangely mingled with concern and dread. “Fra Girolamo and I
will arrange these matters between us. Leave us in good faith. You
will depart on the morrow! I wish I knew you safe in the cloister even
now! Go, my son,–and peace be with you!”–

Francesco turned silently to leave the room. Presently something, a
quiver of feeling, stopped him. He hesitated for a moment, then he
returned to the bedside, bending over it and gazing sadly into his
father’s face.

“I shall see you again in the morning?” he asked gently.

“By the will of God,” the sick man replied with feeble voice.

His head had sunk upon his breast. Francesco crossed the room and was
gone. A moment after they heard a loud, jarring laugh without. Then
all was still.

The elder Villani and the monk exchanged looks in silence. For some
time neither spoke. When the silence was broken at last, it was in a
way which revealed the close touch between the minds of these two.

“Was the struggle great?” questioned the monk.

“Great as the sacrifice demanded,” replied the sick man. “And yet, not
as fierce as I had apprehended. Francesco is my own flesh and blood!
Ah! At times my heart reproaches me for what I have done!”

“A weakness you will overcome! In giving back to the Church the boy
who was in a fair way to become her enemy, who had been reared in the
camp of her mortal foes, who had been fed on the milk of heresy and
apostasy, you have but done your duty. He will soon have forgotten
that other life, which would have consigned him to tortures eternal,
and will gladly accept what is required of him for the repose of your
soul and his own!”

There was a brief pause, during which the elder Villani seemed to
collect his waning energies. The monk’s speech had roused in him a
spirit of resistance, of defiance. Who were they that would dispose
of the life of his own flesh and blood? It was too late, to undo what
he had done. But it should not pass without a protest.

“Monk, you know not whereof you speak,” the sick man said hoarsely.
“The rioting blood of youth cannot suddenly be stemmed in the veins,
and congealed to ice at the command of a priest! I too was young and
happy once,–long ago, and how happy! God who knows of my
transgression, alone knows! I have paid the penalty with my own flesh
and blood. Tell His Holiness, he may be satisfied!”

“His Holiness could demand no less,” interposed the monk. “Your sin
was mortal: you added to it by placing the offspring of a forbidden
love at the court of the arch-heretic, thrice under ban of
excommunication.”

“That was my real sin,–that other would have been forgiven,” replied
the elder Villani bitterly, as if musing aloud. “Let those who are
undefiled, cast the first stone. How beautiful she was,–how heavenly
sweet! And with dying breath, as if the impending dissolution of the
body had imbued her with the faculty to look into the future, she
piteously begged me, as if she apprehended my weakness after her
spirit had fled:–‘Do not make a monk of my boy!'”

He paused with a sob, then he continued:

“Will the repose of my soul, which I have purchased with this
immeasurable sacrifice, insure her own in the great beyond? What will
she say to me, when we meet in the realm of shadows, when the plaint
of her child is wafted to her in the fumes of the incense, while his
trembling hands swing the censer and he curses the day when he saw the
light of life?”

“She will rather bless you, knowing from what temptations of the flesh
you have removed him,” replied the monk, peering anxiously from his
cowl down to where the sick man lay.

This, at least, must be no enforced sacrifice. Gregorio Villani must
stand acknowledged to himself and the world for the greater glory of
the Church. He, the one time friend of Frederick, the Emperor, by
whose side he had entered the gates of Antioch in the face of the
fierce defence of the Saracens, he, the Ghibelline Emperor’s right
hand in the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre, must now and forever sever
his cause from that of the arch-enemy of papacy, and die in the fold
of the Church.

The monk had calculated on the sick man’s waning strength, and the
ebbing tide of life proved his mightiest ally.

The stricken man lay still for a time, then he heaved a sigh.

“God grant that your words be true,–that I have not cast him in the
way of temptation instead.”

Raising himself with difficulty upon his pillows, he glanced
significantly at the envoy from Rome. Then, with voice needlessly
hushed, for there was no one present to hear him, he added:

“He must depart at once! He must not return to Avellino!”

The monk pondered a while, then shook his head.

“It were hardly wise. Francesco has signed the pledge and will not
break his oath. He must himself inform the Apulian court of his
decision, of his choice.”

And inwardly he thought: Thus only will the sacrifice be complete and
the triumph of the Church!

“Might he not inform them from wherever he goes?”

There was a strange dread in the elder Villani’s eyes, which remained
not unobserved by the other.

“You would not have Francesco, flesh of your flesh, blood of your
blood, appear a coward who fears to proclaim his own free will?”

The monk laid stress on the last words.

The elder Villani was startled. Yet he understood.

“His own free will,” he repeated as in a dream. “The boy is proud. He
will never proclaim his father’s shame!”

The monk smiled,–a subtle, inward smile.

Francesco’s extraction was an open secret, though no one had ever
alluded to it in his presence. Yet the Pope’s delegate judged the
youth correctly. Besides, the elder Villani’s suggestion would have
upset his own and his master’s plans. The Church could be wholly
triumphant only if Francesco openly denounced the friends, the loves
of his boyhood, his youth. A stealthy flight from the court to the
cloister would scarcely have added to the glory of those who had
brought about the deed.

A sinking spell had seized the sick man and the monk hastened to call
in the attendant mediciners. But the cordial they administered with
some difficulty only had the effect of producing more regular
breathing.

Gregorio Villani’s prophetic words were to be fulfilled.

Francesco meanwhile lay in the guest-chamber, which had been prepared
for him. His brain rebelled against further labor and his head had
scarcely found its welcome resting-place ere the darkly fringed
eyelids drooped heavily, and he slept. Through the remaining hours of
the night he lay wrapped in a slumber resembling that of death. Only
once or twice he moaned, tossing restlessly on his pillows. The rays
of the morning sun, creeping up to his eyes, held in them a drowsy
dream of a girl’s fair face. The dream brought no awakening, and the
sun was high in the heavens, when a hand, cold and thin, was laid upon
his white one, which lay listlessly above his head. Instantly he
started up, ready to resent the intrusion, when he met the gaze of two
sombre eyes, peering down upon him, which recalled him to the place
and hour.

Before him stood the shrunken form of Fra Girolamo.

With a deep sigh, he returned to reality.

“How fares my father?” he asked quickly, his memory stirred by the
sombre eyes that met his own.

“Requiescat in pace!” said the monk with bowed head.

Francesco sank back upon his cushions and hid his face in his arms.
The monk heard him sob and, for a moment, his frame seemed to shake as
with convulsions. At last he raised himself with an effort.

“Conduct me to him!” he then said to the friar, who preceded him in
silence to the death-chamber.

The rays of the morning sun shone upon the face of Gregorio Villani
and imbued the features with a look of peace such as the living had
not worn for many a day. The monks had placed his body on a bier, on
each side of which two tall wax tapers burned in their sconces.

Francesco knelt down by the side of the bier, burying his head in his
hands, while the monk retreated into a remote corner of the room.

When he rose at last, the watcher saw all the young life go out of his
face, which suddenly grew old and cold. Light and color seemed
simultaneously to depart from eyes and lips, and his limbs seemed
hardly able to sustain him upright. After a pause he dared not break,
for dread of revealing his sudden feeling, the youth’s lifeless voice
was raised in the dreary monotone of questioning.

“When will they take him away?”

The monk came nearer.

“He will be laid to rest at night-fall under the great altar of the
Cathedral.”

A silence fell between them.

Again Francesco spoke.

“The dial points to something like noon?”

The monk nodded.

“When will you ride?”

“At night-fall.”

“It is well. You will return to Avellino, that you may bid farewell to
your former master and friends. Thence you will proceed to Monte
Cassino.”

“To Monte Cassino,” the youth echoed with a voice dead as his soul.

Then he added:

“I ride alone?”

“Alone!”

“Leave me now! I would spend the last hours here with him!”

“Will you not come to the refectory? You are in need of food, and the
day is long!”

Francesco raised his hands as if in abhorrence of the thought. Then,
as he turned towards the bier, he seemed newly overwhelmed at the
sight of the lifeless clay before him. The memory of his father’s
first appearance, as he entered the sick-chamber, the ashen pallor,
the traces of cruel pain, now softened or effaced by the majesty of
Death, reverted to him.

He sank down beside the bier.

But try as he might, he could not pray.

Thus the monk left him.–

On that evening, in the presence of the entire chapter of the
Cathedral and the monks of San Cataldo, they laid to rest under the
great altar of the imposing edifice all that was mortal of Gregorio
Villani, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John.

And on that evening the strange friar, who had brought to the dying
man the much craved conditional absolution, departed after a final
interview with Francesco, who was to return at once to Avellino to
prepare himself for the new life which had been decreed for him.