Gonzalvo’s Daughter. Chapter 1

“Constance, my child! take comfort; all is not lost to thee, though I must leave thee sooner than I expected,” were the almost inarticulate words of a dying warrior, as, supported in the arms of an attendant, he bent over a beautiful girl who had flung herself on her knees beside his rude pallet, burying her face in his hand in all the abandonment of grief. It was a low-roofed, rudely-furnished chamber in the olden castle of Ruvo, supporting on its panelled walls and divisions of the ceiling many specimens of the warlike implements of the time. Shields of massive workmanship, with the overhanging helmet, the long sword, and misericorde or dagger, interspersed with spears and iron caps, were suspended on all sides; while jars and flasks, a bugle horn, an unsheathed sword and belt, and such like gear, were scattered on the floor. The dying man was stretched on the only couch the room afforded; a wooden pallet serving alike for bed and chair, one part of which was occupied by two of the warrior’s men-at-arms, their eyes fixed alternately on their beloved commander and the fair being on whom his last thoughts seemed centred. On their left stood two venerable monks; the one holding aloft the cross, the other bearing on a silver salver the consecrated bread and wine, which the warrior had received in lowly faith, convinced his last moment was at hand. Two other armed figures, sturdy cavaliers, finished the group. Individual sorrow was deepened by the thought, that with Duke Manfred died the last lingering hopes of Naples. He had refused to follow his brother, the voluntarily-exiled monarch Frederic, to the court of France, hoping still to preserve his ill-fated country from being trampled on, even if its liberty were gone;—struggling against Spain, and her great captain, simply because he thought France less likely to look on Naples as a slave, though for him individually life had lost all joy—for he felt his country would never again rise, beautiful and free, as she had been. Mortally wounded in an unexpected skirmish with the Spaniards, Manfred would yet have met death calmly, if not willingly, had not the deep grief of the fair girl who had clung to him as to a second father—preferring to linger by his side in the roughest part of Naples, to accompanying her own royal parent to the luxurious court of Louis—distracted him to the forgetfulness of all, save how to comfort her. He knew it was no small loss she mourned,—the young, impoverished, yet noble Luigi Vincenzio, to whom the first freshness of her young affections had been given, with all the fervid warmth of an Italian heart, was as dear to Manfred as his own son, and he had promised to plead for Vincenzio with her father, in lieu of the gay Duke de Nemours, whom Frederic favoured, but whom Constance instinctively abhorred. No marvel the words of the dying man fell vainly and discordantly upon her ear,—that she clung to him as if that wild embrace should fetter life within;—he should not, must not leave her! Fainter and fainter became the voice of Manfred,—and then all was silent, save the convulsive sobs of the kneeling girl, whose tears had so bedewed the rough hand she clasped that she knew not how cold it grew, and the deep yet suppressed breathings of those around. A quick step made its way through the groups of mourning Neapolitans, who thronged the chamber, and a tall manly form stood reverentially and mournfully beside the pallet.

“Alas! alas! too late,—he has gone! his look, his voice of kindly blessing—all denied me! Constance! my beloved!”

The voice aroused her; she started to her feet, looked shudderingly on the face of the dead, and then sinking in the arms of Vincenzio, wept less painfully upon his bosom. But, brief as was that upward glance, it displayed a face so youthful, and of such touching loveliness, that tears should have been strangers there; child-like as it was, yet there was something in its sweet expression which told the threshold of life was past; she had looked beyond, and tasted the magic draught whose first drop transforms the being, and influences the whole of after life. Her rich golden hair hung loose and dishevelled over her pale cheek, and her deep blue beautifully-formed eye was swollen with weeping, yet was she lovely despite of all.

But short communion was allowed the youthful pair, for the last wish of the dying warrior had been that his niece should seek the convent of St. Alice, twenty miles distant, there to remain till happier hours dawned for Naples, or she could more securely rejoin her father.

“Yes, better there than lingering here, where Nemours may deem himself privileged to seek thee when he lists,” resumed the young Neapolitan when his words of gentle soothing had had effect, and Constance was comforted. “Sweetest! it shall be but a very brief farewell; the thought that thou art in safety shall soothe the hours of absence, and thou wilt promise to think of me—my own!”

“Think of thee!” she repeated, and a smile lit up that sweet face, till to say in which it looked more lovely, smiles or tears, would have been difficult. “There is no need to make me promise that, my Luigi; I could not, if I would, think aught of other save” (her voice faltered) “of the kind heart gone!” She paused a moment, then added, sorrowfully, “My father, my poor father! I should wish to join him—yet I cannot. Luigi, dearest Luigi, ’tis my turn to chide now, if thou lookest doubtingly and sad; our best friend has gone! Oh, we cannot weep too long for him! yet, canst thou think if Frederic knew whom his Constance loved he would still deny her? No! no! smile on me, love, and trust me, Constance of Naples will have none other lord but thee.”

He did trust her; and the brief period left them passed in such sweet, and hopeful converse, that sorrow itself was soothed, and both were strengthened for the parting hour.

Luigi himself headed the gallant little troop of native warriors, collected to convey her with all honour to the convent. He dreaded that Nemours, obtaining notice of the intended movement, would attempt the capture of the princess by force, and otherwise annoy them; but to his surprise not a trace of the French army awaited them.

Quartered as they were almost all over Calabria, generally presenting their steel fronts as strong lines of defence for the towns and castles round, this desertion appeared extraordinary; particularly as their aim had been to incapacitate the Spaniards from leaving their entrenchments within the fortified city of Barletta, twelve miles to the south of Ruvo, where they were at present quartered.

Night was falling when Vincenzio returned to Ruvo; but there was still light enough for him to distinguish more than usual military bustle within the walls; soldiers were hurrying to and fro; arms were burnishing; lances and swords sharpening; large fires blazing up; bands of armed men assembling; the heavy harness and unsheathed weapons forming in heaps and lines to be donned and grasped at a moment’s warning. Anxious and curious, Vincenzio hastened to the quarters of the Sire de La Palice, governor of the town, and found him, though joyous and laughter-loving as was his wont, alternately giving orders to several officers, who seemed to appear and disappear with a glance, and muttering oaths and execrations on some extraordinary act of folly, the nature of which, or by whom committed Luigi found some difficulty in comprehending.

Our limits will not permit our becoming personally acquainted with La Palice, which a conversation might accomplish. We must confine ourselves to a brief relation of historical facts. It appeared that the inhabitants of Castellanata, enraged beyond all measure at the licentious and insulting conduct of the French troops quartered in their vicinity, had risen in sudden revolt, and finally betrayed the town into the hands of the Spaniards. Nemours, thinking more of his own dignity, which he imagined had been outraged in this revolt, than of the real interests of his sovereign, swore the most signal vengeance, and marched his whole force north-ward, disregarding the representations of more experienced officers, that it would be the height of folly to leave all Calabria unguarded, for the reduction of one paltry town. The character of Gonzalvo was too well known to admit a thought of his neglecting this opportunity of attack; and La Palice therefore, on his part, determined to be on the alert, though he guessed not how soon or whence the attack would come.

There were many sad thoughts on the young Neapolitan’s heart as he returned to his own chamber. Alas! it little signified to Naples who were her masters, French or Spaniards; but he recalled that period of his country’s brief prosperity, when the celebrated Captain Gonzalvo had been his monarch’s guest and honoured friend, and grieved that Frederic had chosen France, instead of Spain, for refuge: perhaps his instinctive hatred to Nemours, as the encouraged aspirant to the hand of his Constance, increased these regrets; but still to La Palice he was bound by all the chivalric ties of military companionship, and he determined, if danger threatened, to forget his nationality awhile, and fight in his friend’s defence.

The night was peculiarly mild and lovely; the soft silvery halo flung down from the full moon on the clustering olives and vineyards, stretching beneath the young Italian’s window, over some miles of fertile country, seemed to whisper tranquillity and peace, that war had not yet disturbed; and Luigi looked forth lingeringly till the calm sank into his own soul, and Constance alone stood forth amid those troubled visions like a star gleaming through clouds on the trembling waves.

It was near daybreak ere he sought his couch and slept; but not for long. One pale streak of dawn alone was visible; but there were sounds on the still air little in accordance with the lingering night. A dull, heavy, monotonous roar, as of a continued cannonade close at hand, was accompanied by sharp, vivid flashes of light playing athwart the casement; then followed the roll of many drums,—the shout “to arms,” “the foe! the foe!”—the clash of the alarum bell—the heavy trampling of a hundred feet—the shrill shrieks of woman’s terror, and other sounds of tumult and war. Vincenzio listened a moment as one still dreaming: but then La Palice’s warning flashing on his mind, he sprang to his feet and glanced beneath him. Far, far as his eye could reach, trampling down that fair scene of fertility and peace, there came band after band of armed men, rolling onward in such dense masses, that he felt at a glance resistance was in vain. Marvellous as it seemed, Gonzalvo de Cordova himself was upon them; and that name in its mighty eloquence was paralysing terror! A very brief interval sufficed to banish every thought from Luigi’s mind but fears for La Palice, by whose side he speedily was. The noise waxed louder, closer, but there was no trace of disturbance, or even anxiety, on the governor’s open brow, as he gaily marshalled his little band of three hundred lances, to throw themselves into the first breach which Gonzalvo’s unceasing cannonade was rapidly making in the walls.

“Ha! welcome, comrade mine!” he cried, grasping Vincenzio’s hand. “Mark La Palice as a true prophet, and Nemours the most egregious blockhead that ever wrote himself a man. Ha! all compact there; ready! that’s well—to the right, forward!” and on they rushed through the town. Already every wall was manned, and showers of arrows and stones galled the Spaniards at every turn, but had no power on the immense mass at work against the ramparts. Already the walls were tottering, falling, borne down by the heavy cannonade. On the opposite side the walls had been scaled, and Spanish and French fought hand to hand on the summit. A yell of triumph soon after proclaimed the formation of an immense breach, into which Gonzalvo himself and his choicest troops poured like a mountain torrent, increasing, swelling, as it came, as if utterly to overwhelm the compact little phalanx which La Palice threw forward to oppose him. A very brief struggle sufficed to show how fruitless was every effort of the French; the immense odds speedily forced the breach; but still, hemmed in on all sides so closely that their swords had scarcely room for full play, there was no word of surrender or defeat; struggling only to preserve their honour in their death, man after man fell, without yielding an inch, around his leader. Presently wilder and more deafening sounds arose; mingling indiscriminately the roar of artillery, the clang of steel, the rush of a hundred chargers, the shrill shrieks of women, so that not one could be distinguished from another. The town was forced, and every street, for a brief interval, became the scene of combat. Another hour, and the strife was at an end. La Palice, who had striven as if his individual efforts could avert defeat, had been overwhelmed with numbers, and brought to the ground with the crushing blow of a battle-axe; yet even then, with his own gay laugh, he flung his sword over the heads of his captors, that none should claim him as an individual prize. Vincenzio shared his fate, the capture of his friend removing from him all inclination to prolong the fruitless combat, and yet more exasperate the Spaniards against his ill-fated countrymen.

The close of that day beheld Ruvo deserted; the heavy banner of Spain waving above the ruined ramparts alone marked what had been; for the riches of Ruvo,—gold, treasure, horses and arms, the French prisoners, almost all of whom were badly wounded, and the principal Neapolitan citizens, were conveyed under strong detachments to Barletta, the head-quarters of the great captain and his troops.