The vicar of the marches

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Enter the Vicar . . . . 1

II. The Vicar and His Sire ... 9

Chapter I. Enter The Vicar

I, Tiso di Camposanpiero, am to tell you many things, but chiefly am I to set forth how Ezzelino da Romano, well christened by some “ Ezzelino the Devil,” came to his undoing. The forbears of this spawn of wickedness sprang from the ragged German wastes, fought and fattened under Conrad the Salic, and suddenly grew to puffed importance through the lands which they held, by imperial favor, in the Trevisan Mark. It was in the days of the first Ezzelino, he who was nicknamed “ the stammerer,” that the feud between our family and the Romanesi had its beginning. Treacherous and brutal it was in its inception, and while spasmodic in its continuance, there was little likelihood of its ultimate abatement since both parties considered themselves the injured, although it was upon the Camposanpieresi that the original affront had been put.

In the autumn of that year, however, which first stands out boldly in my recollection there was, for the time being, a smiling show of peace between the two houses. On a certain late September afternoon my father, with a large number of attendants, among them being representatives of our name from Cittadella and Castelfranco, had ridden away to Padua from our castle of Fonte, having been bidden to a marriage festival at the palace of the Caponegri ; “ Ezzelino the monk,” the head of the Romanesi, was in monastic seclusion, while his son whose notorious fame was later to become a terror in the ears of Christendom was supposedly engrossed in smoothing out various differences between the nobles and burghers of Verona, of which city just then he was the Podesta.

For days a wonderful dancing, shimmering amber haze had glorified the earth. I can recall that even to the eyes of a seven-year-old lad like myself, there was something magical in it. The stubble of long-garnered fields of grain, the farstretching aisles of mulberry orchards, the indefinite reaches of vineyard, the rows of spire-like poplar trees notching the distant horizon, each and all gained through the aerial alchemy a new and dreamy beauty. I had tired of the gambols of my hound, and of playing at buffet-ball with one of my mother’s maids, and had climbed alone to what was my favorite post of observation, the northeasterly watch tower of the wall which girdled the paved enclosure in the center of which our country home, the castle of Fonte, was set.

Here I was wont to watch the laborers moving to and fro in the fields, and likewise to observe the comers and goers upon the two main thoroughfares which joined the castle to the great outer world. There were stone seats running about the edge of the square room within the tower whereon my father had ordered cushions to be placed, knowing my fondness for the spot. Indeed it was

ENTER THE VICAR regarded in periods of tranquility not only by the family, but also by all the castle attendants, as a kind of outer play-room over which I was the sole autocrat. Here I stored my collection of bows and arrows, my slings, my two small lances which Pompeo the armorer had fashioned for me, and likewise the tough jacket of ox-hide studded with nails of brass which was the most precious of my various warlike possessions.

Having gained my beloved haunt, instead of making a fresh disposition of my belongings, as was usually my custom each time I visited the tower, I became absorbed in the efforts of a kite to capture some agile bird of the sparrow species, a fierce game of retreat and pursuit which was taking place in that saffron space of sky commanded by the large easterly-looking window. The contest was a protracted one, and I was still engaged in following it when drowsiness overtook me. The cushions offered a tempting resting haven, and with a little childish sigh of contentment, I sank back among them.

When I lost myself in sleep there was scarcely a noise to break the afternoon placidity. The men-at-arms who had not accompanied my father upon his ride to Padua were lounging upon benches on the shady side of the castle enclosure, their armor and weapons laid aside; most of the menials of both sexes were afar in the fields; my mother, my two elder brothers and my sister were in my father’s train; while Benedetto, the crippled servitor who frequently had me in charge during the absence of the family, had betaken himself to some abandoned task within the castle when I had announced my intention of seeking my tower play-room.

What a contrast presented itself upon my awakening! Below, from the great paved courtyard, the clash of weapons and the sound of mad contention rose with frightful insistency. From my cozy nest amid the cushions I bounded as though ejected by an arbalest. In three leaps I crossed the tower room, and peered from one of the oblong apertures opening upon the court. Little could I distinguish but a confused welter of men who shouted and swung their swords. Step by step, as I continued to gaze upon them, fascinated by the sanguine scene, I saw that those who wore the garb of our service were being forced back toward the inner castle entrance. This, I well remember, kindled my boyish wrath, and I began crying shame upon them, but my weak treble carried no further in that medley of blows and oaths than the empty pipings of a bird.

At the entrance to the inner court the struggle grew fiercer, and the better to mark the outcome, for a sense of fear or of curiosity in regard to the cause of the contest had not yet gripped me, I emerged from my play-room by the slit of a door leading to the narrow path along the outer wall. I had been forbidden to venture upon this path because it was but illy protected, and a drop

ENTER THE VICAR of fifteen feet or more sheer upon the stones of the court would have meant the shattering of my tender bones. In the stress of the moment, however, all regard for this prohibition left me, and forth I stood in full view of the combatants, reiterating my feeble exhortations.

I now for the first time noted a score of horses, just within the outer gate, in charge of four burly troopers. One of these men was keen of eye, and speedily espied me. He pointed me out with vehement gesticulation to his nearest companion to whom he relinquished the bridles which he was holding. Then he sprang with great strides toward the frantic press in the inner gate. For several moments his presence upon the edge of the melee, shriek and wave his arms as he might, created no diversion, but at length the spare figure of a man disengaged itself from the writhing mass which was the occasion for another agitated move on the part of the trooper. What should he do but wheel about and point with the long forefinger of his steel gauntlet to me still astare upon the wall, though this development had silenced my impatient outcries.

Astonishment for an instant held the lean swordsman, as it did me, transfixed. Then as both trooper and swordsman gave an exultant shout and made swiftly toward me and the tower, a dim notion crept into my childish brain that I was in some way connected with all the red pother.

“Tiso ! Tiso mio !”

My name, called in a voice shrill with apprehension hard by, startled me completely from my daze. My glance shifted from the twain who were crossing the courtyard hot-foot to the direction whence the voice proceeded. There, a few paces distant, approaching me pantingly with a speed that seemed incredible for him, was my quasi-protector, Benedetto. He held out his hand imploringly to me as he advanced.

44 Come ! oh, come !” he entreated.

I now caught some of the fear written plain upon his face, and hastened to meet him.

44 Who are they ? What does it mean ?” I demanded, as he clutched my slender fingers and half dragged me after him along the precarious pathway about five feet below the crest of the battlements.

44 4 Tis Ezzelino da Romano and his men !” Benedetto replied, 44 and methinks they seek you. The villian has broken his pledged word.”

The name was enough to affright a heart far stouter than mine, although Ezzelino was then known but as an ambitious and enterprising leader. In our family, however, even to so young a member of it as myself, the cognomen stood for everything perfidious and unknightly.

44 Where — where are you taking me?” I managed to gasp.

44 Do you not remember that there is a passage to the castle from the watch tower just ahead? If we can gain that, and bar the door, perhaps

ENTER THE VICAR 7

these ruffians can be beaten off till assistance is summoned from the fields.”

I recalled the passage which Benedetto mentioned, and my ebbing courage began to flood back. Then that happened which I am never likely to forget for it was my first glimpse of naked tragedy. There was a sudden singing sound in the air above me; Benedetto gave a choking sob, released my hand spasmodically, spun round, and plunged headlong down upon the bare flags of the court. A bolt from a cross-bow, sped by I never learned what hand, had smitten him at the base of the brain, and quenched his faithful life. Uncomprehending, I halted and gazed with horrified wonder upon him where he lay in a crumpled heap beneath me.

“ Benedetto ! Benedetto !” I began to cry.

Then seeing that he did not move, a swift comprehension seized me that some ill had befallen him, and I could no longer look to him for aid. The sharp ring of feet upon the courtyard stones spurred me to action. Below, trooper and swordsman were drawing near, and I commenced an unequal race with them for the tower. Like a hunted rabbit I scurried into it, and down the winding stairs, hoping to gain the passage beneath where I fancied I might possibly conceal myself in some obscure nook. But in the dimness at the foot of the stairway I stumbled into the arms of the stout trooper who caught me by my doublet collar and bore me struggling and screaming out into the sunlight. As he held me at arm’s length, laughing in gruff triumph, with an exultant — “ I’ve got the brat ! ” — I managed to twist my head about and set my sharp teeth deep in his wrist. He flung me from him with a great roar and curse, and had not the swordsman stepped between me where I lay upon the stones and this massive hulk of a man, I do not doubt but that the latter’s mailed heel would have made a speedy end of me there and then.

The face of my captor and preserver into which I looked up when I recovered my senses, dazed by the fall, although I knew it not at the time, was that of Ezzelino da Romano !

Chapter II

It was strangely emotionless, the countenance into which I gazed, and though I afterward beheld it not infrequently it appeared to change but little as the years passed save for a deepening of the lines about the mouth and eyes. It was a mask, enigmatic, baffling analysis, and if long regarded likely to produce in the one studying it a shuddering sensation of disquietude. Smiles rarely hovered about the lips, and when detected they seemed to be a ghastly travesty of mirth. Dark and dull was the evenly cut hair that framed the features. The face might have been pronounced colorless had it not been for the glow in the eyes which were like rubies, lambent in every light. Of medium height, lean as a grayhound and as muscular, swift of movement as some forest creature, Ezzelino da Romano always gave the impression of unbounded physical endurance, as he did of mental penetration and subtlety.

“ Enough !” he said, turning to the trooper, after gripping my arm and pulling me to my feet. “ You caught him, and he’s yours to care for, but you may not dull his teeth, even though they be sharp.”

“ You understand,” he added significantly, holding the man beneath his compelling gaze.

The trooper shifted his eyes, changed his position in dumb embarrassment, and then assented. With a swift push I was given over into his charge, while Ezzelino’s voice rang out in sharp command. Twice, thrice he called, and the clangor of blows still resounding from the inner court ceased. In compact order the attacking troopers issued into the outer enclosure, our men-at-arms not offering to follow them. In the center of the retreating body I speedily found myself, half dragged and half carried. Then I was unceremoniously tossed across a saddle pommel, and a moment afterward, in front of the rough trooper into whose charge I had been given was borne out from our castle of Fonte along the dust-deep highway northward into what was to me an unknown land.

The fields flashed by in the golden light. Orchards, vineyards, squalid and cluttered villages, isolated towers, these swam across the vision, and faded in a blur of haze and dust. A warm reek of steam began rising from the horses, but they were still spurred pitilessly forward.

Once, when we had been some time upon the road, I saw the trooper before whom I sat moisten with his lips the spot upon his wrist where my teeth had inflicted a wound, and a sob which I could not choke back rose in my throat, while tears welled from my eyes. I had been much ashamed of this action of mine, and I now blurted out, —

“ Oh, Pm sorry I did it!”

“ You may indeed have cause to be sorry,” he returned, but it did not appear from his look that he had reference to my childish fit of rage and desperation, nor do I imagine that this was in his thoughts.

Toward evening we were joined by a second company of armed horsemen, and paused a little space to bait and water the steeds, then on we swept again through an atmosphere glorified by the splendors of the setting sun. After my repentant outburst I was treated with considerate kindness by the trooper whose saddle I shared. He was a Suabian, as were most of those in Ezzelino’s force, and was commonly called Great Arm by his comrades on account of the size of his muscles which were certainly developed in the most marvelous fashion. He divided with me the meagre store of food stowed away in his saddle-bags, and when I grew drowsy as night closed in upon us let me lean against him, protecting me with his arm, so that during the last few miles of our journey I was occupied with dreams and not with rude realities.

Then came a halt that jarred me awake, and indistinctly through the darkness I detected the outline of a wall and the massive tower of a gateway. There were several abrupt orders, a flash of lights through portals laboriously backward thrown, and we passed two by two into the city of Bassano where the huge castle of Ezzelino dominated from its crown of rock. The streets were still alive with folk who shrank back, regarding us dumbly as we ascended toward the fortress. Here, there was a warmer welcome, a ruddy flare of torches, much hurrying to and fro of servants, and a loud uproar of tongues. As I stood by the side of Great Arm in the courtyard several richlygarbed people, both men and women, came and regarded me curiously. Then I was led away by the trooper along passages that seemed endless, and up stairs that wound far higher into the air than any at Fonte, to a square room where there were two cots, one huge and one small.

“These are our quarters, Poverino,” announced Great Arm. “ Shall you be afraid to sleep here with me?”

His glance and smile were both re-assuring. Indeed his face inspired me with a far different feeling from that which filled me at the sight of Ezzelino, who had come to stare at me intently for an instant before I had been conducted from the court.

“ No,” I answered, “ but when am I to be allowed to go home?”

Great Arm shook his head.

“Listen !” said he, lowering his voice, and speaking in a measured and impressive tone. “If you are very quiet, say nothing unless addressed except in my presence, and keep out of sight as much as may be, perhaps it will not be very long.”

It turned out to be just ten days. What might have chanced had not the trooper taken an unaccountable liking for me, and continually maneuvered to keep me in the background, can only be surmised. Ezzelino had few schemes fermenting in his brain just then, and his wanton seizure of me at a time when there was sworn amity between himself and my father, may have been no more than the spasmodic outbreak of a nature that demanded some constant and intense diversion. On the other hand it may have been the leading stroke in some subtly conceived plan.

On the day following the irruption upon Fonte, however, news was brought in of the revolt of the Trevisans from the rule of the Romanesi, then Messer Sordello arrived with Cunizza, Ezzelino’s sister, stolen away (and very willingly, it would appear) from her husband, the Count of San Bonifacio, at her brother’s instigation. These two occurrences, together with Great Arm’s cleverness, may have saved my life.

But thrice during my ten days’ tarry in the castle of Bassano did I encounter Ezzelino, and each time it was when I had gone down for exercise in the castle court. The Lord of Romano regarded me fixedly in each instance, and then passed on, Great Arm in the meanwhile standing by as stolid as one of the pillars of the courtyard arcade. The trooper was my constant companion. Not for a single moment by day or night was he absent from my side. He had been made my cicerone, and for his own sake as well as mine he was fulfilling his orders to the letter.

Somehow the hours of my detention did not drag, for Great Arm was a famous story teller, and devised many curious sports for my amusement. One of these was a mimic battle between some toy soldiers which he very cunningly shaped from strips of red and white wood, which he contrived to smuggle up to our room. The opposing forces in these encounters belonged to the Romanesi and the Camposanpieresi, and Great Arm frequently allowed the latter to come off victorious, vastly to my satisfaction. Indeed so wholly taken up did I become with my trooper that I invited him to accompany me when I was allowed to return home, assuring him that at Fonte he should have all the pleasures and none of the disagreeable duties of the dead Benedetto.

It was perhaps a trifle beyond mid-afternoon on the tenth day of my stay in the hold of Ezzelino that Great Arm proposed we descend to the courtyard from our eyrie in the upper portion of one of the castle towers. I was glad enough of the suggested change, and capered ahead of my guardian until I had to be restrained by a word of caution. We had reached the lower floor and were proceeding toward the court along a lofty corridor when the sound of a lute was borne to our ears from without, and the voice of one singing a madrigal. Great Arm grunted and grinned in sneering disapproval at my questioning look.

“ ’Tis Messer Sordello,” said he, “ strumming lady-bird airs to my Lord’s sister, the Donna Cunizza !”

Directly before us, as we emerged into the open, stood the minstrel cavalier. He was leaning against one of the arcade pillars, and was gazing upward, the while he fingered his instrument and sang at the smiling, fair-faced woman who was bending from the balcony above pelting him with roses. Neither desisted upon our appearance, and when the song and the flower throwing were over the two made merry with a give and take of amorous banter. But there was that to follow which dwarfed this scene into insignificance. In the very midst of a honeyed interchange of compliments the wooer and the woman ceased suddenly. From within came the sound of a man’s hurried footfalls, from without the clang of iron hoofs upon the stones, and as Ezzelino entered, set of face and tense of limb, an extraordinary figure upon a lathered horse appeared in the gateway. As the two moved forward to meet each other Great Arm gave an exclamation of amazement.

“ Who is it?” said I, tugging at his doublet.

“ Hush !” returned he, “ ’tis my Lord’s father, Ezzelino Monico.”

A grim man and swart was Ezzelino the Monk as he sat his horse there in the center of the courtyard of the castle of Bassano, never offering to dismount. Sweat streamed down his furrowed face, and glistened upon his hairy hands. Protruding from his monk’s brown robe glistened the mail boots of a warrior, while beneath his rope girdle showed the scabbard of a sword.

Father and son were silent for a space, eye holding eye.

“ For what am I thus honored?” Ezzelino the younger at length inquired. “ Something untoward must have happened to move my father from his meditations.”

“ Aye, truly !” returned the elder man, glancing about the courtyard whence Sordello and Donna Cunizza had contrived to disappear.

“ I see the reason before me,” he added, letting his gaze rest upon me.

“ Why should so trifling a thing stir you so far?”

“ Trifling indeed ! And what, think you, has your deed of ten days’ since brought about? What is already on foot while you sit here inert, planning I know not what further foolhardiness?”

“ I suppose it is the Trevisan revolt that you are making this heated to-do over!”

“ That were bad enough, surely, but top Treviso with Padua, and you have a combination that even the brilliant young Lord of Romano can hardly hope to cope with.”

“ Padua!”

“Aye, Padua! This very day the Podesta offered Guglielmo di Camposanpiero the services of two thousand men, and they will march on the morrow. Five hundred Trevisans will join them, and if they pass beyond the Brenta there will be trouble within the walls of Bassano.”

“ You seem to have in mind some means of preventing the passage of the Brenta. You must know that there are now but two hundred spearsmen here available.”

“ One man and a child can prevent the crossing of that army, — you and the boy yonder.”

“ Ah, give up the cub of the Camposanpieresi !”

Ezzelino the younger who had hitherto faced his father unmoved, returning him look for look, and quick word for word, now wheeled and took a swift turn up and down. It was a bitter thing to be forced to surrender his prey, whatever his original intention had been.

“ Hearken !” cried Ezzelino Monico, breaking in upon his son’s musings. “ I have ever thought and said you would go far if you did not overleap yourself at the outset. It was my dream once to rule in Padua. That dream you may realize if you will but wait, but you must have patience. You have taken a false step. Make what amends you can, and then, later, when the power is in your hands, you can stamp these Camposanpieresi from the face of the earth. We have wrought often at cross purposes, you and I, but the very fact that this critical juncture in your affairs has drawn me from my seclusion at Monte Venda should be proof conclusive to you that my anxiety is real, and my desire for your ultimate success is not feigned.”

During the latter part of this gruff and direct speech the younger man stood with contracted brows, and eyes fixed upon the paven court.

“ You are right, my father,” he said at length, once more facing Ezzelino Monico, “ 1 have not yet learned to wait. The boy shall go back, and I will not allow myself to break loose again — not until I am sure — and then — ”

I could see every muscle in the man’s body grow rigid, his hands clenched, and his glance swept beyond his father as though he were contemplating what he intended to wrest from the future.

“After all,” said the old man upon the steed, reining his animal about, and giving his mouth a whimsical twist, “ you are a son to be proud of!”

“ You will tarry?” inquired Ezzelino the younger.

“And perhaps grow sorry that I ever relinquished my power here? nay!” and he shook his head.

Then he drew aside his monk’s robe, showing more plainly the armor underneath.

“ I did not know this morning but that I might turn warrior again, but I am glad to find that I am to be saved that necessity. Peace — ” he paused as though pondering if that were the word he should use — “ yes, peace be with you !”

“ You mean for the present,” replied his son ironically.

There was no answer to this observation, but the sudden gleam that lit the eyes of Ezzelino Monico told that his son’s irony was appreciated.

In another moment he was gone, and the younger man, in no wise showing if he had been conscious of our presence, turned and disappeared within the castle corridors.

We were on horseback before the dawn of the next day, I mounted in front of Great Arm as I had come. Two hundred soberly garbed spearsmen were our escort, and the standard of Ezzelino was set on the north bank of the Brenta at the crossing of the Padua road before the outriders of the combined forces of Padua and Treviso had reached the river.

Marking the presence of Ezzelino’s camp, no attempt at crossing was made until the Podesta of Padua and my father had arrived. On their approach the Lord of Romano rode to the river verge, signalling that he would have speech with them. They replied, inviting him to cross. Demanding from Great Arm that I be brought, he placed me upon his pommel and spurred into the stream which was, at this period, shallow from long drouth.

He was halted as he scrambled up the shingle beneath the opposite bank. The parley that ensued was of the briefest. I was given over into my father’s arms. Ezzelino swore an oath of amity toward Padua and all its friends which amounted to no more than so much morning seavapor. Then abruptly reining his horse about, he re-forded the stream, and rode briskly away into the north without deigning to cast one back-

W THE VICAR OF THE MARCHES ward glance upon all the imposing array drawn up to overawe him. But his eyes had been busy, and, in the after time, many a one in Padua and Treviso regretted his presence at that scene of humiliation, for the memory of the Lord of Romano was long.

Much of the foregoing is written out of my own acute childish recollection, the rest has been supplied by Berthold, the Suabian (still sometimes called Great Arm) who not many weeks after my return to the castle of Fonte quitted the service of Ezzelino and entered that of my father, and who to-day may still be found lording it over the men-at-arms of the Camposanpieresi.

Chapter III The Fugitives

Between that hour of enforced renunciation on the banks of the Brenta and the time when I next came into direct contact with Ezzelino da Romano there was a lapsing of well nigh a score of years. During most of this period the ancient feud between the Romanesi and Camposanpieresi was quiescent. The Lord of Romano had made himself all-powerful in Padua and, indeed, in many another opulent town, for as Vicar of the Emperor in northern Italy he had been granted practically a free hand in such municipalities as favored the Ghibelline rule. I had grown to manhood, studied under the learned doctors of the university of Padua, escaped being forced into the church by my family only through my bitter obstinacy and the fact that I possessed a soldierly figure and a leaning toward martial accomplishments, and then, drifting eastward to gratify the itch of curiosity and a wandering spirit, had taken service among the Greeks whose empire was rent by rival native and Latin claimants, and among whom one wearing a ready blade was never long likely to lack employment.

It was during the summer of the third year after my departure from Padua, early in the very month when I quitted Constantinople to attach myself to the body-guard of the King of Nicea, that news of the death of my two elder brothers reached me. So much my senior were both Frederico and Rolando that I was bound to them by no intimate ties of affection, but the realization of how poignantly their demise would effect my parents touched me deeply. It was more the desire to be of what comfort I might to my father and mother than the thought of my own change in state and fortune, that urged me upon my homeward way. Of course I could but feel that my position was greatly altered. From being a younger son, I had suddenly become, by an inexplicable stroke of fate, the sole male heir, in the direct line, to the name and possessions of the Camposanpieresi.