Resting at length from desire and intrigue, Marcian lay cold upon the bed where he had passed his haunted nights. About his corpse were gathered all the servants of the house; men, with anger on their brows, muttering together, and women wailing low because of fear. The girl who had met the horsemen by the bridge told her story, whence it became evident that Marcian’s death was the result of private quarrel; but some of the slaves declared that this armed company came in advance of the Gothic host; and presently the loss of their master was all but forgotten in anxiety as to their own fate at the hands of the Emperor.
This talk was interrupted by the approach of Basil’s men, who came to seek a meal for themselves and forage for their horses. Having no choice but to obey, the servants went about the work required of them. A quiet fell upon the house. The strangers talked little, and, when they spoke, subdued their voices. In still chambers and corridors was heard now and then a sound of weeping.
Basil, though he had given orders for departure as soon as the meal was done, knew not whither his journey should be directed. A paralysis of thought and will kept him pacing alone in the courtyard; food he could not touch; of repose he was incapable; and though he constantly lifted up his bloodstained hand, to gaze at it as if in bewildered horror, he did not even think of washing the blood away. At moments he lost consciousness of what he had done, his mind straying to things remote; then the present came back upon him with a shock, seeming, however, to strike on numbed senses, so that he had to say to himself, ‘I have slain Marcian,’ before he could fully understand his suffering.
Veranilda was now scarce present to his mind at all. Something vaguely outlined hovered in the background; something he durst not look at or think about; the sole thing in the world that had reality for him was the image of Marcian—stabbed, shrieking, falling, dead. Every minute was the fearful scene reenacted. More than once he checked himself in his walk, seeming to be about to step on Marcian’s body.
At length, seeing a shadow draw near, he raised his eyes and beheld Gaudiosus. He tried to speak, but found that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. Automatically he crossed himself, then caught the priest’s hand, and knelt and kissed it.
‘Rise, my son,’ said Gaudiosus, ‘for I would talk with you.’
On one side of the courtyard was a portico with seats, and thither the old man led.
‘Unless,’ he began gravely, ‘unless the author of all falsehood—who is so powerful over women—has entered into this maiden to baffle and mislead me utterly, I feel assured that she is chaste; not merely unsullied in the flesh, but as pure of heart as her fallen nature may permit a woman to be.’
Basil gazed at him darkly.
‘My father, how can you believe it? Did you not hear her lament because the man was dead? It is indeed the devil that beguiles you.’
Gaudiosus bent his head, and pondered anxiously.
‘Tell me,’ he said at length, ‘all her story, that I may compare it with what I have heard from her own lips.’
Slowly at first, and confusedly, with hesitations, repetitions, long pauses, Basil recited the history of Veranilda, so far as he knew it. The priest listened and nodded, and when silence came, continued the narrative. If Veranilda spoke truth she had never seen Marcian until he took her from the convent at Praeneste. Moreover, Marcian had never uttered to her a word of love; in his house she had lived as chastely as among the holy sisters.
‘What did she here, then?’ asked Basil bitterly. ‘Why did he bring her here? You know, O father, that it was not in fulfilment of his promise to me, for you heard his shameless lie when I questioned him.’
‘He told her,’ replied the priest, ‘that she sojourned here only until he could put her under the protection of the Gothic King.’
‘Of Totila?’ cried Basil. ‘Nay, for all I know, he may have thought of that—his passion being appeased.’
Even as he spoke be remembered Sagaris and the letter written in Gothic. Some motive of interest might, indeed, have prompted Marcian to this step. None the less was he Veranilda’s lover. Would he otherwise have kept her here with him, alone, and not rather have continued the journey, with all speed, till he reached Totila’s camp?
‘When I left her,’ pursued Gaudiosus, whose confidence in his own judgment was already shaken by the young man’s vehemence, ‘I spoke in private with certain of the bondswomen, who declared to me that they could avouch the maiden’s innocence since her coming hither—until today’s sunrise.’
Basil laughed with scorn.
‘Until today’s sunrise? And pray, good father, what befell her at that moment? What whisper the Argus-eyed bondswomen?’
‘They tell me,’ replied the priest, ‘that she went forth and met Marcian, and walked with him in a wood, her own woman having been sent back to the villa. This troubled me; but her voice, her countenance—’
‘Helped by the devil,’ broke in Basil. ‘Reverend man, do not seek to deceive yourself, or to solace me with a vain hope. I pray you, did Marcian, when you came to visit him, speak of a lady whose virtue he was sworn to guard? Plainly, not a word fell from him. Yet assuredly he would have spoken had things been as you pretend.’
Gaudiosus, bent double, a hand propping his white-bearded chin, mused for a little with sadded air.
‘Lord Basil,’ he resumed at length, ‘somewhat more have I to say to you. I live far from the world, and hear little of its rumour. Until this day your name was unknown to me, and of good concerning you I have to this hour heard nothing save from your own lips. May I credit this report you make of yourself? Or should I rather believe what Marcian, in brief words, declared to me when he heard that you were at his gate?’
The speaker paused, as if to collect courage.
‘He spoke ill of me?’ asked Basil.
‘He spoke much ill. He accused you of disloyalty in friendship, saying that he had but newly learnt how you had deceived him. More than this he had not time to tell.’
Basil looked into the old man’s rheumy eyes.
‘You do well to utter this, good father. Tell me one thing more. Yonder maiden, does she breathe the same charge against me?’
‘Not so,’ replied Gaudiosus. ‘Of you she said no evil.’
‘Yet I scarce think’—he smiled coldly—‘that she made profession of love for me?’
‘My son, her speech was maidenly. She spoke of herself as erstwhile your betrothed; no more than that.’
As he uttered these words, the priest rose. He had an uneasy look, as if he feared that infirmity of will and fondness for gossip had betrayed him into some neglect of spiritual obligation.
‘It is better,’ he said, ‘that we should converse no more. I know not what your purposes may be, nor do they concern me I remain here to pray by the dead, and I shall despatch a messenger to my brother presbyter, that we may prepare for the burial. Remember,’ he raised his head, and his voice struck a deeper note, ‘that the guilt of blood is upon you, and that no plea of earthly passion will avail before the Almighty Judge. Behold your hand—even so, but far more deeply have you stained your soul.’
Basil scarce heard. Numbness had crept over him again; he stared at the doorway by which the priest reentered the house, and only after some minutes recalled enough of the old man’s last words to look upon his defiled hand. Then he called aloud, summoning any slave who might hear him, and when the doorkeeper came timidly from a recess where he had been skulking, bade him bring water. Having cleansed himself, he walked by an outer way to the rear of the villa; for he durst not pass through the atrium.
Here his men were busy over their meal, sitting or sprawling in a shadowed place, the slaves waiting upon them. With a reminder that they must hold themselves ready to ride at any moment, he passed on through a large, wild garden, and at length, where a grove of box-trees surrounded the ruins of a little summer-house, cast himself to the ground.
His breast heaved, his eyes swelled and smarted, but he could not shed tears. Face downwards, like a man who bites the earth in his last agony, he lay quivering. So did an hour or more pass by.
He was roused by the voices of his men, who were searching and calling for him. With an effort, he rose to his feet, and stepped out into the sunshine, when he learnt that a troop of soldiers had just ridden up to the villa, and that their captain, who had already entered, was asking for him by name. Careless what might await him, Basil followed the men as far as the inner court, and there stood Venantius.
‘I surprise you,’ cried out the genial voice with a cheery laugh. You had five hours start of me. Pray, dear lord, when did you get here?’
Basil could make no reply, and the other, closely observing his strange countenance, went on to explain that, scarcely started from Aesernia on his way to the king, Marcian’s messenger had met with Totila himself, who was nearer than had been thought. After reading the letter, Totila had come on rapidly to Aesernia, and had forthwith despatched Venantius to the villa by Arpinum.
‘You guess my mission, lord Basil,’ he pursued, with bluff good-humour. ‘Dullard that I was, the talk of a fair lady travelling in Marcian’s charge never brought to my mind that old story of Surrentum. Here is our royal Totila all eagerness to see this maiden—if maiden still she be. What say you on that point, dear lord? Nay, look not s............