"But will not Victor return with the relics?"
"He must not return; an order from your Majesty will take him to Lodi, where he will wait until he is wanted."
"Excellent!"
"Eberhard is in earnest, and your Majesty must stint nothing in the evidences of respect shown to him. The people will admire your condescension. Let your embassy be as brilliant as possible. Count Haro should be one of your envoys; he possesses a magnificent castle between Pavia and St. Martin. He can conduct the prelates thither, and your Majesty can then encounter this Goliah of the South-German Episcopacy."
"Bravo!" cried Frederic; "I approve of everything: Act at once."
CHAPTER XXXI.
AT RIVOLI.
An express was immediately dispatched to Rivoli, bearing to Count Haro the order to get all the apartments of his castle in readiness. Dassel himself sent forward a train of mules, bearing costly carpets, silver candlesticks, and massive plate--everything, in short, which was needed to offer a most sumptuous hospitality. The castle, usually so quiet, assumed an air of gayety, and the steward rushed in every direction, arranging and disarranging, ordering, scolding, and hastening on the preparations.
The chaplain of the castle alone remained calm, in the midst of the general confusion. Evidently, some unusual occurrence condemned him to idleness, for his callous hands showed that his occupations were not purely intellectual. The servants generally abandoned to him everything which they refused to do, and his appearance was rather that of a stable-boy than an ecclesiastic. Although he had received but a limited education, Rainulph felt the impropriety of such behavior, and often complained that his spiritual functions were not regarded with becoming reverence. But his murmurs rarely reached the Count's ear, and when they did, little attention was paid to them; for Haro, always at Court, knew too well the Emperor's course towards the Pope to be respectful to his own chaplain.
"Since the Pope," he told him, "obeys Frederic's orders, you must make up your mind to do as I tell you."