After having paid his reckoning and secured his steed, Francesco thanked the friar for his intervention on his behalf, then, with some difficulty, he mounted and rode out of the gates of Benevento, without as much as looking back with a single glance upon the city's ominous walls. CHAPTER IV PROSERPINA Francesco arrived at Avellino at dusk. It was the hour when the castle courtyard was comparatively deserted. Only two bow-men guarded the lowered drawbridge, and they paid little heed to the familiar form of the youth as he slowly rode through the gate. Throwing the reins of his steed to an attendant, Francesco dismounted and entered the castle, undecided what to do first. Seeing a page lounging in the hallway, he inquired if the Viceroy was in his apartments. "He returned from the falcon hunt at dusk and has retired," came the response. "Go, ask him if he will receive me," Francesco entreated, heavy-hearted. The page bowed and ran up the winding stairway, leaving Francesco to wait in the hall below. Presently he returned. "The serving-man in my lord's antechamber has orders that my lord is to be disturbed by no one, since he is preparing for his departure on the morrow--" "For his departure?" The page eyed Francesco curiously, as if he wondered at his ignorance of that which was on the lips of all the court. "You have not heard?" "I have just returned to Avellino,--from a mission," he replied, avoiding the inquisitive gaze he knew to be upon him. "Then you know not that King Conradino has crossed the Alps? The court departs on the morrow to join him before the walls of Pavia!" Francesco's hand had gone to his head. "Conradino has crossed the Alps?" he spoke as out of the depths of a dream. "I will see the Viceroy on the morrow!" Leaving the page to gaze after him in strange wonderment, Francesco went slowly towards the stairs. He shrank unspeakably from explanations and scenes of farewell. At the idea of pity and amazement which his fate might call up, he fairly shuddered. Perhaps there might be even sneers from his companions. And, by the time he had reached his own chamber, he was debating the possibility of departing as if for a journey with excuses to none save his liege lord, the Viceroy of Apulia. Upon a wooden settle in his chamber, with the moonbeams pouring down from the window above it, he seated himself, and his heart beat up in his throat. If it were true! If the ecstatic dream of his life might be realized! If face to face he might meet Conradino, the imperial youth, the rightful heir and ruler of these enchanting Southlands which smarted under Anjou's insufferable yoke!