We passed the Duomo, consecrated to Our Lady of Mondolfo. Its portals stood wide, and in the opening swung a heavy crimson curtain, embroidered with a huge golden cross which was bellying outward like an enormous gonfalon. On the steps a few crippled beggars whined, and a few faithful took their way to early Mass.
On, up the steep, ill-paved street we climbed to the mighty grey citadel looming on the hill's crest, like a gigantic guardian brooding over the city of his trust. We crossed the drawbridge unchallenged, passed under the tunnel of the gateway, and so came into the vast, untenanted bailey of the fortress.
I looked about me, beat my hands together, and raised my voice to shout
"Ola! Ola!"
In answer to my call the door of the guardhouse opened presently, and a man looked out. He frowned at first; then his brows went up and his mouth fell open.
"It is the Madonnino!" he shouted over his shoulder, and hurried forward to take my reins, uttering words of respectful welcome, which seemed to relieve the fears of my peasant, who had never quite believed me what I proclaimed myself.
There was a stir in the guardhouse, and two or three men of the absurd garrison my mother kept there shuffled in the doorway, whilst a burly fellow in leather with a sword girt on him thrust his way through and hurried forward, limping slightly. In the dark, lowering face I recognized my old friend Rinolfo, and I marvelled to see him thus accoutred.
He halted before me, and gave me a stiff and unfriendly salute; then he bade the man-at-arms to hold my stirrup.
"What is your authority here, Rinolfo?" I asked him shortly.
I am the castellan," he informed me.
"The castellan? But what of Messer Giorgio?"
"He died a month ago."
"And who gave you this authority?"
"Madonna the Countess, in some recompense for the hurt you did me," he replied, thrusting forward his lame leg.
His tone was surly and hostile; but it provoked no resentment in me now. I deserved his unfriendliness. I had crippled him. At the moment I forgot the provocation I had received—forgot that since he had raised his hand to his lord, it would have been no great harshness to have hanged him. I saw in him but another instance of my wickedness, another sufferer at my hands; and I hung my head under the rebuke implicit in his surly tone and glance.
"I had not thought, Rinolfo, to do you an abiding hurt," said I, and here checked, bethinking me that I lied; for had I not expressed regret that I had not broken his neck?
I got down slowly and painfully, for my limbs were stiff and my feet very sore. He smiled darkly at my words and my sudden faltering; but I affected not to see.
"Where is Madonna?" I asked.
"She will have returned by now from chapel," he answered.
I turned to the man-at-arms. "You will announce me," I bade him. "And you, Rinolfo, see to these beasts and to this good fellow here. Let him have wine and food and what he needs. I will see him again ere he sets forth."
Rinolfo muttered that all should be done as I ordered, and I signed to the man-at-arms to lead the way.
We went up the steps and into the cool of the great hall. There the soldier, whose every feeling had been outraged no doubt by Rinolfo's attitude towards his lord, ventured to express his sympathy and indignation.
"Rinolfo is a black beast, Madonnino," he muttered.
"We are all black beasts, Eugenio," I answered heavily, and so startled him by words and tone that he ventured upon no further speech, but led me straight to my mother's private dining-room, opened the door and calmly announced me.
"Madonna, here is my Lord Agostino."
I heard the gasp she uttered before I caught sight of her. She was seated at the table's head in her great wooden chair, and Fra Gervasio was pacing the rush-strewn floor in talk with her, his hands behind his back, his head thrust forward.
At the announcement he straightened suddenly and wheeled round to face me, inquiry in his glance. My mother, too, half rose, and remained so, staring at me, her amazement at seeing me increased by the strange appearance I presented.
Eugenio closed the door and departed, leaving me standing there, just within it; and for a moment no word was spoken.
The cheerless, familiar room, looking more cheerless than it had done of old, with its high-set windows and ghastly Crucifix, affected me in a singular manner. In this room I had known a sort of peace—the peace that is peculiarly childhood's own, whatever the troubles that may haunt it. I came into it now with hell in my soul, sin-blackened before God and man, a fugitive in quest of sanctuary.
A knot rose in my throat and paralysed awhile my speech. Then with a sudden sob, I sprang forward and hobbled to her upon my wounded feet. I flung myself down upon my knees, buried my head in her lap, and all that I could cry was:
"Mother! Mother!"
Whether perceiving my disorder, my distraught and suffering condition, what remained of the woman in her was moved to pity; whether my cry acting like a rod of Moses upon that rock of her heart which excess of piety had long since sterilized, touched into fresh life the springs that had long since been dry, and reminded her of the actual bond between us, her tone was more kindly and gentle than I had ever known it.
"Agostino, my child! Why are you here?" And her wax-like fingers very gently touched my head. "Why are you here—and thus? What has happened to you?"
"Me miserable!" I groaned.
"What is it?" she pressed me, an increasing anxiety in her voice.
At last I found courage to tell her sufficient to prepare her mind.
"Mother, I am a sinner," I faltered miserably.
I felt her recoiling from me as from the touch of something unclean and contagious, her mind conceiving already by some subtle premonition some shadow of the thing that I had done. And then Gervasio spoke, and his voice was soothing as oil upon troubled waters.
"Sinners are we all, Agostino. But repentance purges sin. Do not abandon yourself to despair, my son."
But the mother who bore me took no such charitable and Christian view.
"What is it? Wretched boy, what have you done?" And the cold repugnance in her voice froze anew the courage I was forming.
"O God help me! God help me!" I groaned miserably.
Gervasio, seeing my condition, with that quick and saintly sympathy that was his, came softly towards me and set a hand upon my shoulder.
"Dear Agostino," he murmured, "would you find it easier to tell me first? Will you confess to me, my son? Will you let me lift this burden from your soul?"
Still on my knees I turned and looked up into that pale, kindly face. I caught his thin hand, and kissed it ere he could snatch it away. "If there were more priests like you," I cried, "there would be fewer sinners like me."
A shadow crossed his face; he smiled very wanly, a smile that was like a gleam of pale sunshine from an over-clouded sky, and he spoke in gentle, soothing words of the Divine Mercy.
I staggered to my bruised feet. "I will confess to you, Fra Gervasio," I said, "and afterwards we will tell my mother."
She looked as she would make demur. But Fra Gervasio checked any such intent.
"It is best so, Madonna," he said gravely. "His most urgent need is the consolation that the Church alone can give."
He took me by the arm very gently, and led me forth. We went to his modest chamber, with its waxed floor, the hard, narrow pallet upon which he slept, the blue and gold image of the Virgin, and the little writing-pulpit upon which lay open a manuscript he was illuminating, for he was very skilled in that art which already was falling into desuetude.