Chapter 9.III. Adrian's Adventures at Palestrina.
It was yet noon when Adrian beheld before him the lofty mountains that
shelter Palestrina, the Praeneste of the ancient world. Back to a period
before Romulus existed, in the earliest ages of that mysterious
civilisation which in Italy preceded the birth of Rome, could be traced the
existence and the power of that rocky city. Eight dependent towns owned
its sway and its wealth; its position, and the strength of those mighty
walls, in whose ruins may yet be traced the masonry of the remote Pelasgi,
had long braved the ambition of the neighbouring Rome. From that very
citadel, the Mural Crown (Hence, apparently, its Greek name of Stephane.
Palestrina is yet one of the many proofs which the vicinity of Rome affords
of the old Greek civilization of Italy.) of the mountain, had waved the
standard of Marius; and up the road which Adrian's scanty troop slowly
wound, had echoed the march of the murtherous Sylla, on his return from the
Mithridatic war. Below, where the city spread towards the plain, were yet
seen the shattered and roofless columns of the once celebrated Temple of
Fortune; and still the immemorial olives clustered grey and mournfully
around the ruins.
A more formidable hold the Barons of Rome could not have selected; and as
Adrian's military eye scanned the steep ascent and the rugged walls, he
felt that with ordinary skill it might defy for months all the power of the
Roman Senator. Below, in the fertile valley, dismantled cottages and
trampled harvests attested the violence and rapine of the insurgent Barons;
and at that very moment were seen, in the old plain of the warlike Hernici,
troops of armed men, driving before them herds of sheep and cattle,
collected in their lawless incursions. In sight of that Praeneste, which
had been the favourite retreat of the luxurious Lords of Rome in its most
polished day, the Age of Iron seemed renewed.
The banner of the Colonna, borne by Adrian's troop, obtained ready
admittance at the Porta del Sole. As he passed up the irregular and narrow
streets that ascended to the citadel, groups of foreign mercenaries, -
half-ragged, half-tawdry knots of abandoned women, - mixed here and there
with the liveries of the Colonna, stood loitering amidst the ruins of
ancient fanes and palaces, or basked lazily in the sun, upon terraces,
through which, from amidst weeds and grass, glowed the imperishable hues of
the rich mosaics, which had made the pride of that lettered and graceful
nobility, of whom savage freebooters were now the heirs.
The contrast between the Past and Present forcibly occurred to Adrian, as
he passed along; and, despite his order, he felt as if Civilization itself
were enlisted against his House upon the side of Rienzi.
Leaving his train in the court of the citadel, Adrian demanded admission to
the presence of his cousin. He had left Stefanello a child on his
departure from Rome, and there could therefore be but a slight and
unfamiliar acquaintance betwixt them, despite their kindred.
Peals of laughter came upon his ear, as he followed one of Stefanello's
gentlemen through a winding passage that led to the principal chamber. The
door was thrown open, and Adrian found himself in a rude hall, to which
some appearance of hasty state and attempted comfort had been given.
Costly arras imperfectly clothed the stone walls, and the rich seats and
decorated tables, which the growing civilization of the northern cities of
Italy had already introduced into the palaces of Italian nobles, strangely
contrasted the rough pavement, spread with heaps of armour negligently
piled around. At the farther end of the apartment, Adrian shudderingly
perceived, set in due and exact order, the implements of torture.
Stefanello Colonna, with two other Barons, indolently reclined on seats
drawn around a table, in the recess of a deep casement, from which might be
still seen the same glorious landscape, bounded by the dim spires of Rome,
which Hannibal and Pyrrhus had ascended that very citadel to survey!
Stefanello himself, in the first bloom of youth, bore already on his
beardless countenance those traces usually the work of the passions and
vices of maturest manhood. His features were cast in the mould of the old
Stephen's; in their clear, sharp, high-bred outline might be noticed that
regular and graceful symmetry, which blood, in men as in animals, will
sometimes entail through generations; but the features were wasted and
meagre. His brows were knit in an eternal frown; his thin and bloodless
lips wore that insolent contempt which seems so peculiarly cold and
unlovely in early youth; and the deep and livid hollows round his eyes,
spoke of habitual excess and premature exhaustion. By him sat (reconciled
by hatred to one another) the hereditary foes of his race; the soft, but
cunning and astute features of Luca di Savelli, contrasted with the broad
frame and ferocious countenance of the Prince of the Orsini.
The young head of the Colonna rose with some cordiality to receive his
cousin. "Welcome," he said, "dear Adrian; you are arrived in time to
assist us with your well-known military skill. Think you not we shall
stand a long siege, if the insolent plebeian dare adventure it? You know
our friends, the Orsini and the Savelli? Thanks to St. Peter, or Peter's
delegate, we have now happily meaner throats to cut than those of each
other!"
Thus saying, Stefanello again threw himself listlessly on his seat, and the
shrill, woman's voice of Savelli took part in the dialogue.
"I would, noble Signor, that you had come a few hours earlier: we are
still making merry at the recollection - he, he, he!"
"Ah, excellent," cried Stefanello, joining in the laugh; "our cousin has
had a loss. Know Adrian, that this base fellow, whom the Pope has had the
impudence to create Senator, dared but yesterday to send us a varlet, whom
he called - by our Lady! - his ambassador!"
"Would you could have seen his mantle, Signor Adrian!" chimed in the
Savelli: "purple velvet, as I live, decorated in gold, with the arms of
Rome: we soon spoiled his finery."
"What!" exclaimed Adrian, "you did not break the laws of all nobility and
knighthood? - you offered no insult to a herald!"
"Herald, sayst thou?" cried Stefanello, frowning till his eyes were scarce
visible. "It is for Princes and Barons alone to employ heralds. An' I had
had my will, I would have sent back the minion's head to the usurper."
"What did ye then?" asked Adrian, coldly.
"Bade our swineherds dip the fellow in the ditch, and gave him a night's
lodging in a dungeon to dry himself withal."
"And this morning - he, he, he!" added the Savelli, "we had him before us,
and drew his teeth, one by one; - I would you could have heard the fellow
mumble out for mercy!"
Adrian rose hastily, and struck the table fiercely with his gauntlet.
"Stefanello Colonna," said he, colouring with noble rage, "answer me: did
you dare to inflict this indelible disgrace upon the name we jointly bear?
Tell me, at least, that you protested against this foul treason to all the
laws of civilization and of honour. You answer not. House of the Colonna,
can such be thy representative!"
"To me these words!" said Stefanello, trembling with passion. "Beware!
Methinks thou art the traitor, leagued perhaps with yon rascal mob. Well
do I remember that thou, the betrothed of the Demagogue's sister, didst not
join with my uncle and my father of old, but didst basely leave the city to
her plebeian tyrant."
"That did he!" said the fierce Orsini, approaching Adrian menacingly, while
the gentle cowardice of Savelli sought in vain to pluck him back by the
mantle - "that did he! and but for thy presence, Stefanello - "
"Coward and blusterer!" interrupted Adrian, fairly beside himself with
indignation and shame, and dashing his gauntlet in the very face of the
advancing Orsini - "wouldst thou threaten one who has maintained, in every
list of Europe, and against the stoutest Chivalry of the North, the honour
of Rome, which thy deeds the while disgraced? By this gage, I spit upon
and defy thee. With lance and with brand, on horse and on foot, I maintain
against thee and all thy line, that thou art no knight to have thus
maltreated, in thy strongholds, a peaceful and unarmed herald. Yes, even
here, on the spot of thy disgrace, I challenge thee to arms!"
"To the court below! Follow me," said Orsini, sullenly, and striding
towards the threshold. "What, ho there! my helmet and breast-plate!"
"Stay, noble Orsini," said Stefanello. "The insult offered to thee is my
quarrel - mine was the deed - and against me speaks this degenerate scion
of our line. Adrian di Castello - sometime called Colonna - surrender your
sword: you are my prisoner!"
"Oh!" said Adrian, grinding his teeth, "that my ancestral blood did not
flow through thy veins - else - but enough! Me! your equal, and the
favoured Knight of the Emperor, whose advent now brightens the frontiers of
Italy! - me - you dare not detain. For your friends, I shall meet them yet
perhaps, ere many days are over, where none shall separate our swords.
Till then, remember, Orsini, that it is against no unpractised arm that
thou wilt have to redeem thine honour!"
Adrian, his drawn sword in his hand, strode towards the door, and passed
the Orsini, who stood, lowering and irresolute, in the centre of the
apartment.
Savelli whispered Stefanello. "He says, 'Ere many days be past!' Be sure,
dear Signor, that he goes to join Rienzi. Remember, the alliance he once
sought with the Tribune's sister may be renewed. Beware of him! Ought he
to leave the castle? The name of a Colonna, associated with the mob, would
distract and divide half our strength."
"Fear me not," returned Stefanello, with a malignant smile. "Ere you
spoke, I had determined!"
The young Colonna lifted the arras from the wall, opened a door, and passed
into a low hall, in which sate twenty mercenaries.
"Quick!" said he. "Seize and disarm yon stranger in the green mantle - but
slay him not. Bid the guard below find dungeons for his train. Quick! ere
he reach the gate."
Adrian had gained the open hall below - his train and his steed were in
sight in the court - when suddenly the soldiery of the Colonna, rushing
through another passage than that which he had passed, surrounded and
intercepted his retreat.
"Yield thee, Adrian di Castello," cried Stefanello from the summit of the
stairs; "or your blood be on your own head."
Three steps did Adrian make through the press, and three of his enemies
fell beneath his sword. "To the rescue!" he shouted to his band, and
already those bold and daring troopers had gained the hall. Presently the
alarum bell tolled loud - the court swarmed with soldiers. Oppressed by
numbers, beat down rather than subdued, Adrian's little train was soon
secured, and the flower of the Colonna, wounded, breathless, disarmed, but
still uttering loud defiance, was a prisoner in the fortress of his
kinsman.
