Ho, boy! cried the leader of the horsemen, Martino di Porto, one of the great House of the Orsini; hast thou seen a boat pass up the river?But thou must have seen ithow long since?
I saw a large boat about half an hour ago, answered the boy, terrified by the rough voice and imperious bearing of the cavalier.
Sailing right a-head, with a green flag at the stern?
The same, noble sir.
On, then! we will stop her course ere the moon rise, said the baron. On!let the boy go with us, lest he prove traitor, and alarm the Colonna.
An Orsini, an Orsini, shouted the multitude; on, on! and, despite the prayers and remonstrances of the boy, he was placed in the thickest of the crowd, and borne, or rather dragged along with the restfrightened, breathless, almost weeping, with his poor little garland still hanging on his arm, while a sling was thrust into his unwilling hand. Still he felt, through all his alarm, a kind of childish curiosity to see the result of the pursuit.
By the loud and eager conversation of those about him, he learned that the vessel he had seen contained a supply of corn destined to a fortress up the river held by the Colonna, then at deadly feud with the Orsini; and it was the object of the expedition in which the boy had been thus lucklessly entrained to intercept the provision, and divert it to the garrison of Martino di Porto. This news somewhat increased his consternation, for the boy belonged to a family that claimed the patronage of the Colonna.
Anxiously and tearfully he looked with every moment up the steep ascent of the Aventine; but his guardian, his protector, still delayed his appearance.
They had now proceeded some way, when a winding in the road brought suddenly before them the object of their pursuit, as, seen by the light of the earliest stars, it scudded rapidly down the stream.
Now, the Saints be blest! quoth the chief; she is ours!
Hold! said a captain (a German) riding next to Martino, in a half whisper; I hear sounds which I like not, by yonder treeshark! The neigh of a horse!by my faith, too, there is the gleam of a corselet.
Push on, my masters, cried Martino; the heron shall not balk the eaglepush on!
With renewed shouts, those on foot pushed forward, till, as they had nearly gained the copse referred to by the German, a small compact body of horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, dashed from amidst the trees, and, with spears in their rests, charged into the ranks of the pursuers.
A Colonna! a Colonna! An Orsini! an Orsini! were shouts loudly and fiercely interchanged. Martino di Porto, a man of great bulk and ferocity, and his cavaliers, who were chiefly German Mercenaries, met the encounter unshaken. Beware the bears hug, cried the Orsini, as down went his antagonist, rider and steed, before his lance.
The contest was short and fierce; the complete armour of the horsemen protected them on either side from wounds,not so unscathed fared the half-armed foot-followers of the Orsini, as they pressed, each pushed on by the other, against the Colonna. After a shower of stones and darts, which fell but as hailstones against the thick mail of the horsemen, they closed in, and, by their number, obstructed the movements of the steeds, while the spear, sword, and battle-axe of their opponents made ruthless havoc amongst their undisciplined ranks. And Martino, who cared little how many of his mere mob were butchered, seeing that his foes were for the moment embarrassed by the wild rush and gathering circle of his foot train (for the place of conflict, though wider than the previous road, was confined and narrow), made a sign to some of his horsemen, and was about to ride forward towards the boat, now nearly out of sight, when a bugle at some distance was answered by one of his enemy at hand; and the shout of Colonna to the rescue! was echoed afar off. A few moments brought in view a numerous train of horse at full speed, with the banners of the Colonna waving gallantly in the front.
A plague on the wizards! who would have imagined they had divined us so craftily! muttered Martino; we must not abide these odds; and the hand he had first raised for advance, now gave the signal of retreat.
Serried breast to breast and in complete order, the horsemen of Martino turned to fly; the foot rabble who had come for spoil remained but for slaughter. They endeavoured to imitate their leaders; but how could they all elude the rushing chargers and sharp lances of their antagonists, whose blood was heated by the affray, and who regarded the lives at their mercy as a boy regards the wasps nest he destroys. The crowd dispersing in all directions,some, indeed, escaped up the hills, where the footing was impracticable to the horses; some plunged into the river and swam across to the opposite bankthose less cool or experienced, who fled right onwards, served, by clogging the way of their enemy, to facilitate the flight of their leaders, but fell themselves, corpse upon corpse, butchered in the unrelenting and unresisted pursuit.
No quarter to the ruffiansevery Orsini slain is a robber the lessstrike for God, the Emperor, and the Colonna! such were the shouts which rung the knell of the dismayed and falling fugitives. Among those who fled onward, in the very path most accessible to the cavalry, was the young brother of Cola, so innocently mixed with the affray. Fast he fled, dizzy with terrorpoor boy, scarce before ever parted from his parents or his brothers side!the trees glided past himthe banks receded:on he sped, and fast behind came the tramp of the hoofsthe shoutsthe cursesthe fierce laughter of the foe, as they bounded over the dead and the dying in their path. He was now at the spot in which his brother had left him; hastily he glanced behind, and saw the couched lance and horrent crest of the horseman close at his rear; despairingly he looked up, and behold! his brother bursting through the tangled brakes that clothed the mountain, and bounding to his succour.
Save me! save me, brother! he shrieked aloud, and the shriek reached Colas ear;the snort of the fiery charger breathed hot upon him;a moment more, and with one wild shrill cry of Mercy, mercy he fell to the grounda corpse: the lance of the pursuer passing through and through him, from back to breast, and nailing him on the very sod where he had sate, full of young life and careless hope, not an hour ago.
The horseman plucked forth his spear, and passed on in pursuit of new victims; his comrades following. Cola had descended,was on the spot,kneeling by his murdered brother. Presently, to the sound of horn and trumpet, came by a nobler company than most of those hitherto engaged; who had been, indeed, but the advanced-guard of the Colonna. At their head rode a man in years, whose long white hair escaped from his plumed cap and mingled with his venerable beard. How is this? said the chief, reining in his steed, young Rienzi!
The youth looked up, as he heard that voice, and then flung himself before the steed of the old noble, and, clasping his hands, cried out in a scarce articulate tone: It is my brother, noble Stephen,a boy, a mere child!the bestthe mildest! See how his blood dabbles the grass;back, backyour horses hoofs are in the stream! Justice, my Lord, justice!you are a great man.
Who slew him? an Orsini, doubtless; you shall have justice.
Thanks, thanks, murmured Rienzi, as he tottered once more to his brothers side, turned the boys face from the grass, and strove wildly to feel the pulse of his heart; he drew back his hand hastily, for it was crimsoned with blood, and lifting that hand on high, shrieked out again, Justice! justice!
Who slew him? an Orsini, doubtless; you shall have justice.
Thanks, thanks, murmured Rienzi, as he tottered once more to his brothers side, turned the boys face from the grass, and strove wildly to feel the pulse of his heart; he drew back his hand hastily, for it was crimsoned with blood, and lifting that hand on high, shrieked out again, Justice! justice!
The group round the old Stephen Colonna, hardened as they were in such scenes, were affected by the sight. A handsome boy, whose tears ran fast down his cheeks, and who rode his palfrey close by the side of the Colonna, drew forth his sword. My Lord, said he, half sobbing, an Orsini only could have butchered a harmless lad like this; let us lose not a moment,let us on after the ruffians.
No, Adrian, no! cried Stephen, laying his hand on the boys shoulder; your zeal is to be lauded, but we must beware an ambush. Our men have ventured too farwhat, ho, there!sound a return.
The bugles, in a few minutes, brought back the pursuers,among them, the horseman whose spear had been so fatally misused. He was the leader of those engaged in the conflict with Martino di Porto; and the gold wrought into his armour, with the gorgeous trappings of his charger, betokened his rank.
Thanks, my son, thanks, said the old Colonna to this cavalier, you have done well and bravely. But tell me, knowest thou, for thou hast an eagle eye, which of the Orsini slew this poor boy?a foul deed; his family, too, our clients!
Who? yon lad? replied the horseman, lifting the helmet from his head, and wiping his heated brow; say you so! how came he, then, with Martinos rascals? I fear me the mistake hath cost him dear. I could but suppose him of the Orsini rabble, and soand so
You slew him! cried Rienzi, in a voice of thunder, starting from the ground. Justice! then, my Lord Stephen, justice! you promised me justice, and I will have it!
My poor youth, said the old man, compassionately, you should have had justice against the Orsini; but see you not this has been an error? I do not wonder you are too grieved to listen to reason now. We must make this up to you.
And let this pay for masses for the boys soul; I grieve me much for the accident, said the younger Colonna, flinging down a purse of gold. Ay, see us at the palace next week, young Colanext week. My father, we had best return towards the boat; its safeguard may require us yet.
Right, Gianni; stay, some two of you, and see to the poor lads corpse;a grievous accident! how could it chance?
The company passed back the way they came, two of the common soldiers alone remaining, except the boy Adrian, who lingered behind a few moments, striving to console Rienzi, who, as one bereft of sense, remained motionless, gazing on the proud array as it swept along, and muttering to himself, Justice, justice! I will have it yet.
The loud voice of the elder Colonna summoned Adrian, reluctantly and weeping, away. Let me be your brother, said the gallant boy, affectionately pressing the scholars hand to his heart; I want a brother like you.
Rienzi made no reply; he did not heed or hear himdark and stern thoughts, thoughts in which were the germ of a mighty revolution, were at his heart. He woke from them with a start, as the soldiers were now arranging their bucklers so as to make a kind of bier for the corpse, and then burst into tears as he fiercely motioned them away, and clasped the clay to his breast till he was literally soaked with the oozing blood.
The poor childs garland had not dropped from his arm even when he fell, and, entangled by his dress, it still clung around him. It was a sight that recalled to Cola all the gentleness, the kind heart, and winning graces of his only brotherhis only friend! It was a sight that seemed to make yet more inhuman the untimely and unmerited fate of that innocent boy. My brother! my brother! groaned the survivor; how shall I meet our mother?how shall I meet even night and solitude again?so young, so harmless! See ye, sirs, he was but too gentle. And they will not give us justice, because his murderer was a noble and a Colonna. And this gold, toogold for a brothers blood! Will they notand the young mans eyes glared like firewill they not give us justice? Time shall show! so saying, he bent his head over the corpse; his lips muttered, as with some prayer or invocation; and then rising, his face was as pale as the dead beside him,but it was no longer pale with grief!
From that bloody clay, and that inward prayer, Cola di Rienzi rose a new being. With his young brother died his own youth. But for that event, the future liberator of Rome might have been but a dreamer, a scholar, a poet; the peaceful rival of Petrarch; a man of thoughts, not deeds. But from that time, all his faculties, energies, fancies, genius, became concentrated into a single point; and patriotism, before a vision, leapt into the life and vigour of a passion, lastingly kindled, stubbornly hardened, and awfully consecrated,by revenge!
Chapter 1.II. An Historical Surveynot to Be Passed Over, Except by
Those Who Dislike to Understand What They Read.
Years had passed away, and the death of the Roman boy, amidst more noble and less excusable slaughter, was soon forgotten,forgotten almost by the parents of the slain, in the growing fame and fortunes of their eldest son,forgotten and forgiven never by that son himself. But, between that prologue of blood, and the political drama which ensues,between the fading interest, as it were, of a dream, and the more busy, actual, and continuous excitements of sterner life,this may be the most fitting time to place before the reader a short and rapid outline of the state and circumstances of that city in which the principal scenes of this story are laid;an outline necessary, perhaps, to many, for a full comprehension of the motives of the actors, and the vicissitudes of the plot.
Despite the miscellaneous and mongrel tribes that had forced their settlements in the City of the Caesars, the Roman population retained an inordinate notion of their own supremacy over the rest of the world; and, degenerated from the iron virtues of the Republic, possessed all the insolent and unruly turbulence which characterised the Plebs of the ancient Forum. Amongst a ferocious, yet not a brave populace, the nobles supported themselves less as sagacious tyrants than as relentless banditti. The popes had struggled in vain against these stubborn and stern patricians. Their state derided, their command defied, their persons publicly outraged, the pontiff-sovereigns of the rest of Europe resided, at the Vatican, as prisoners under terror of execution. When, thirty-eight years before the date of the events we are about to witness, a Frenchman, under the name of Clement V., had ascended the chair of St. Peter, the new pope, with more prudence than valour, had deserted Rome for the tranquil retreat of Avignon; and the luxurious town of a foreign province became the court of the Roman pontiff, and the throne of the Christian Church.
Thus deprived of even the nominal check of the papal presence, the power of the nobles might be said to have no limits, save their own caprice, or their mutual jealousies and feuds. Though arrogating through fabulous genealogies their descent from the ancient Romans, they were, in reality, for the most part, the sons of the bolder barbarians of the North; and, contaminated by the craft of Italy, rather than imbued with its national affections, they retained the disdain of their foreign ancestors for a conquered soil and a degenerate people. While the rest of Italy, especially in Florence, in Venice, and in Milan, was fast and far advancing beyond the other states of Europe in civilisation and in art, the Romans appeared rather to recede than to improve;unblest by laws, unvisited by art, strangers at once to the chivalry of a warlike, and the graces of a peaceful, people. But they still possessed the sense and desire of liberty, and, by ferocious paroxysms and desperate struggles, sought to vindicate for their city the title it still assumed of the Metropolis of the World. For the last two centuries they had known various revolutionsbrief, often bloody, and always unsuccessful. Still, there was the empty pageant of a popular form of government. The thirteen quarters of the city named each a chief; and the assembly of these magistrates, called Caporioni, by theory possessed an authority they had neither the power nor the courage to exert. Still there was the proud name of Senator; but, at the present time, the office was confined to one or to two persons, sometimes elected by the pope, sometimes by the nobles. The authority attached to the name seems to have had no definite limit; it was that of a stern dictator, or an indolent puppet, according as he who held it had the power to enforce the dignity he assumed. It was never conceded but to nobles, and it was by the nobles that all the outrages were committed. Private enmity alone was gratified whenever public justice was invoked: and the vindication of order was but the execution of revenge.