The Chronicles of Count Antonio. Hope Anthony
and there a free road to the city."
Then Paul let go Antonio's legs and rose, and drew his sword. But his hand was trembling, and he could scarce stand. Then Antonio gave to him a flask that he carried, holding strong waters; and the wretch, drinking greedily, found some courage, and came suddenly at Antonio before Antonio looked for his attack. But the Count eluded him, and drawing his blade awaited the attack; and Paul seized again the flask that he had flung on the ground, and drained it, and mad now with the fumes rushed at Antonio, shrieking curses and blasphemies. The sun rose on the moment that their blades crossed; and before its rays had shone a minute, Antonio had driven his sword through the howling wretch's lung, and Duke Paul lay dying on the grassy hill.
Then Count Antonio stripped off his doublet and made a pillow of it for Paul's head, and sat down by him, and wiped his brow, and disposed his body with such ease as seemed possible. Yet he took no pains to stanch the blood or to minister to the wound, for his intent was that Paul should die and not live. And Paul lay some moments on his back, then twisted on his side; once he flung his legs wide and gathered them again under his body, and shivered, turning on his back again: and his jaw fell, and he died there on the top of the hill. And the Count closed his eyes, and sat by him in silence for many minutes; and once he buried his face in his hands, and a single sob shook him.
But now it was growing to day, and he rose, and took from the Duke's waist the broad silken band that he wore, wrought with golden embroidery on a ground of royal blue. Then he took Paul in his arms and set him upright against the trunk of the tree, and, encircling tree and body with the rich scarf, he bound the corpse there; and he took the ivory tablet from his belt and tied the riband that hung through a hole in it to the riband of the Order of St. Prisian, that was round Paul's neck, and he wrote on the tablet, "Witness my hand – Antonio of Monte Velluto." And he wiped the blade of his sword long and carefully on the grass till it shone pure, clean, and bright again. Then he gazed awhile at the city, that grew now warm and rich in the increasing light of the sun, and turned on his heel and went down the hill by the way that he had come.
At the foot, Tommasino and Martolo awaited him; and when he came down alone, Martolo again signed the cross; but Tommasino glanced one question, and, finding answer in Antonio's nod, struck his open palm on the quarters of Duke Paul's horse and set it free to go where it would; and the horse, being free, started at a canter along the road to the city. And Antonio mounted and set his face again towards the hills. For awhile he rode alone in front; but when an hour was gone, he called to Tommasino, and, on the lad joining him, talked with him, not gaily indeed (that could not be), yet with calmness and cheerfulness on the matters that concerned the band. But Paul's name did not cross his lips; and the manner in which he had dealt with Paul on the hill rested unknown till a later time, when Count Antonio formally declared it, and wrote with his own hand how Duke Paul had died. Thus, then, Count Antonio rode back to the hills, having executed on the body of Paul that which seemed to him right and just.
Long had Duke Valentine waited for his brother in the summer-house and greatly wondered that he came not. And as the morning grew and yet Paul came not, the Duke feared that in some manner Antonio had detected the snare, and that he held Paul a prisoner; for it did not enter the Duke's mind that Antonio would dare to kill his brother. And when it was five o'clock, the Duke, heavy-eyed for want of sleep, left the summer-house, and having traversed the garden, entered his cabinet and flung himself on a couch there; and notwithstanding his uneasiness for his brother, being now very drowsy, he fell asleep. But before he had slept long, he was roused by two of his pages, who ran in crying that Duke Paul's horse had come riderless to the gate of the city. And the Duke sprang up, smiting his thigh, and crying, "If harm has come to him, I will not rest till I have Antonio's head." So he mustered a party of his guards, some on horseback and some on foot, and passed with all speed out of the city, seeking his brother, and vowing vengeance on the insolence of Count Antonio.
But the Duke was not first out of the city; for he found a stream of townsmen flocking across the bridge; and at the end of the bridge was a gathering of men, huddled close round a peasant who stood in the centre. The pikemen made a way for His Highness; and when the peasant saw him, he ran to him, and resting his hand on the neck of the Duke's horse, as though he could scarce stand alone, he cried, pointing with his hand to the hill that rose to the west, "The Duke Paul, the Duke Paul!" And no more could he say.
"Give him a horse, one of you, and let another lead it," cried the Duke. "And forward, gentlemen, whither he points!"
Thus they set forth, and as they went, the concourse grew, some overtaking them from the city, some who were going on their business or for pleasure into the city turning and following after the Duke and his company. So that a multitude went after Valentine and the peasant, and they rode together at the head. And the Duke said thrice to the peasant, "What of my brother?" But the peasant, who was an old man, did but point again to the hill.
At the foot of the hill, all that had horses left them in charge of the boys who were of the party, for the Duke, presaging some fearful thing, would suffer none but grown men to mount with him; and thus they went forward afoot till they reached the grassy summit of the hill. And then the peasant sprang in front, crying, "There, there!" and all of them beheld the body of Duke Paul, bound to the tree by the embroidered scarf, his head fallen on his breast, and the ivory tablet hanging from the riband of the Order of St. Prisian. And a great silence fell on them all, and they stood gazing at the dead prince.
But presently Duke Valentine went forward alone; and he knelt on one knee and bowed his head, and kissed his brother's right hand. And a shout of indignation and wrath went up from all the crowd, and they cried, "Whose deed is this?" The Duke minded them not, but rose to his feet and laid his hand on the ivory tablet; and he perceived that it was written by Duke Paul; and he read what Paul had written to Antonio; how that he, the Duke, being dead, Antonio should come to his own again, and wed Lucia, and hold foremost place in the Duchy. And, this read, the Duke read also the subscription of Count Antonio – "Witness my hand – Antonio of Monte Velluto." Then he was very amazed, for he had trusted his brother. Yet he did not refuse the testimony of the ivory tablet nor suspect any guile or deceit in Antonio. And he stood dry-eyed, looking on the dead face of Duke Paul. Then, turning round, he cried in a loud voice, so that every man on the hill heard him, "Behold the body of a traitor!" And men looked on him, and from him to the faces of one another, asking what he meant. But he spoke no other word, and went straightway down the hill, and mounted his horse again, and rode back to the city; and, having come to his palace, he sent for his little son, and went with him into the cabinet behind the great hall, where the two stayed alone together for many hours. And when the child came forth, he asked none concerning his uncle the Duke Paul.
Now all the company had followed down from the hill after the Duke, and no man dared to touch the body unbidden. Two days passed, and a great storm came, so that the rain beat on Paul's face and the lightning blackened it. But on the third day, when the storm had ceased, the Duke bade the Lieutenant of the Guard to go by night and bring the body of Paul: and the Lieutenant and his men flung a cloak over the face, and, having thus done, brought the body into the city at the break of day: yet the great square was full of folk watching in awe and silence. And they took the body to the Cathedral, and buried it under the wall on the north side in the shade of a cypress tree, laying a plain flat stone over it. And Duke Valentine gave great sums for masses to be said for the repose of his brother's soul. Yet there are few men who will go by night to the Hill of Duke Paul; and even now when I write, there is a man in the city who has lost his senses and is an idiot: he, they say, went to the hill on the night of the 15th of the month wherein Paul died, and came back mumbling things terrible to hear. But whether he went because he lacked his senses, or lost his senses by reason of the thing he saw when he went, I know not.
Thus died Duke Paul the traitor. Yet, though the Duke his brother knew that what was done upon him was nothing else than he had deserved and should have suffered had he been brought alive to justice, he was very wroth with Count Antonio, holding it insolence that any man should lay hands on one of his blood, and, of his own will, execute sentence upon a criminal of a degree so exalted. Therefore he sent word to Antonio, that if he caught him, he would hang him on the hill from the branches of the tree to which Antonio had bound Paul, and would leave his body there for three times three days. And, this message coming to Antonio, he sent one privily by night to the