Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (distant reading .txt) 📖

almost with every word. The contrast between her and Montreal became them both—it was the contrast of devoted reliance and protecting strength: each looked fairer in the presence of the other: and as Adrian sate down to the well-laden board, he thought he had never seen a pair more formed for the poetic legends of their native Troubadours.

Montreal conversed gaily upon a thousand matters—pressed the wine flasks—and selected for his guest the most delicate portions of the delicious spicola of the neighbouring sea, and the rich flesh of the wild boar of the Pontine Marshes.

“Tell me,” said Montreal, as their hunger was now appeased—“tell me, noble Adrian, how fares your kinsman, Signor Stephen? A brave old man for his years.”

“He bears him as the youngest of us,” answered Adrian.

“Late events must have shocked him a little,” said Montreal, with an arch smile. “Ah, you look grave—yet commend my foresight;—I was the first who prophesied to thy kinsman the rise of Cola di Rienzi; he seems a great man—never more great than in conciliating the Colonna and the Orsini.”

“The Tribune,” returned Adrian, evasively, “is certainly a man of extraordinary genius. And now, seeing him command, my only wonder is how he ever brooked to obey—majesty seems a very part of him.”

“Men who win power, easily put on its harness, dignity,” answered Montreal; “and if I hear aright—(pledge me to your lady’s health)—the Tribune, if not himself nobly born will soon be nobly connected.”

“He is already married to a Raselli, an old Roman house,” replied Adrian.

“You evade my pursuit,—Le doulx soupir! le doulx soupir! as the old Cabestan has it”—said Montreal, laughing. “Well, you have pledged me one cup to your lady, pledge another to the fair Irene, the Tribune’s sister—always provided they two are not one.—You smile and shake your head.”

“I do not disguise from you, Sir Knight,” answered Adrian, “that when my present embassy is over, I trust the alliance between the Tribune and a Colonna will go far towards the benefit of both.”

“I have heard rightly, then,” said Montreal, in a grave and thoughtful tone. “Rienzi’s power must, indeed, be great.”

“Of that my mission is a proof. Are you aware, Signor de Montreal, that Louis, King of Hungary—”

“How! what of him?”

“Has referred the decision of the feud between himself and Joanna of Naples, respecting the death of her royal spouse, his brother, to the fiat of the Tribune? This is the first time, methinks, since the death of Constantine, that so great a confidence and so high a charge were ever intrusted to a Roman!”

“By all the saints in the calendar,” cried Montreal, crossing himself, “this news is indeed amazing! The fierce Louis of Hungary waive the right of the sword, and choose other umpire than the field of battle!”

“And this,” continued Adrian, in a significant tone, “this it was which induced me to obey your courteous summons. I know, brave Montreal, that you hold intercourse with Louis. Louis has given to the Tribune the best pledge of his amity and alliance; will you do wisely if you—”

“Wage war with the Hungarian’s ally,” interrupted Montreal. “This you were about to add; the same thought crossed myself. My Lord, pardon me—Italians sometimes invent what they wish. On the honour of a knight of the Empire, these tidings are the naked truth?”

“By my honour, and on the Cross,” answered Adrian, drawing himself up; “and in proof thereof, I am now bound to Naples to settle with the Queen the preliminaries of the appointed trial.”

“Two crowned heads before the tribunal of a plebeian, and one a defendant against the charge of murther!” muttered Montreal; “the news might well amaze me!”

He remained musing and silent a little while, till looking up, he caught Adeline’s tender gaze fixed upon him with that deep solicitude with which she watched the outward effect of schemes and projects she was too soft to desire to know, and too innocent to share.

“Lady mine,” said the Provencal, fondly, “how sayest thou? must we abandon our mountain castle, and these wild woodland scenes, for the dull walls of a city? I fear me so.—The Lady Adeline,” he continued, turning to Adrian, “is of a singular bias; she hates the gay crowds of streets and thoroughfares, and esteems no palace like the solitary outlaw’s hold. Yet, methinks, she might outshine all the faces of Italy,—thy mistress, Lord Adrian, of course, excepted.”

“It is an exception which only a lover, and that too a betrothed lover, would dare to make,” replied Adrian, gallantly.

“Nay,” said Adeline, in a voice singularly sweet and clear, “nay, I know well at what price to value my lord’s flattery, and Signor di Castello’s courtesy. But you are bound, Sir Knight, to a court, that, if fame speak true, boasts in its Queen the very miracle and mould of beauty.”

“It is some years since I saw the Queen of Naples,” answered Adrian; “and I little dreamed then, when I gazed upon that angel face, that I should live to hear her accused of the foulest murther that ever stained even Italian royalty.”

“And, as if resolved to prove her guilt,” said Montreal, “ere long be sure she will marry the very man who did the deed. Of this I have certain proof.”

Thus conversing, the Knights wore away the daylight, and beheld from the open tent the sun cast his setting glow over the purple sea. Adeline had long retired from the board, and they now saw her seated with her handmaids on a mound by the beach; while the sound of her lute faintly reached their ears. As Montreal caught the air, he turned from the converse, and sighing, half shaded his face with his hand. Somehow or other the two Knights had worn away all the little jealousy or pique which they had conceived against each other at Rome. Both imbued with the soldier-like spirit of the age, their contest in the morning had served to inspire them with that strange kind of respect, and even cordiality, which one brave man even still (how much more at that day!) feels for another, whose courage he has proved while vindicating his own. It is like the discovery of a congenial sentiment hitherto latent; and, in a life of camps, often establishes sudden and lasting friendship in the very lap of enmity. This feeling had been ripened by their subsequent familiar intercourse, and was increased on Adrian’s side by the feeling, that in convincing Montreal of the policy of withdrawing from the Roman territories, he had obtained an advantage that well repaid whatever danger and delay he had undergone.

The sigh, and the altered manner of Montreal, did not escape Adrian, and he naturally connected it with something relating to her whose music had been its evident cause.

“Yon lovely dame,” said he, gently, “touches the lute with an exquisite and fairy hand, and that plaintive air seems to my ear as of the minstrelsy of Provence.”

“It is the air I taught her,” said Montreal, sadly, “married as it is to indifferent words, with which I first wooed a heart that