Historic Boys: Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times

by Elbridge S. Brooks

"Off now, thou false Chancellor!" cried Count Diephold. "Think'st thou that the revenues of Sicily are for thy treasure-chest alone? Ho, Boars and Aloes both; down with this French fox, and up with Sicily!"

"Seize the boy and hold him hostage!" shouted William of Kapparon, and with extended arm he strode toward poor little Frederick. With a sudden and nimble turn, the boy dodged the clutch of the baron's mailed fist, and putting one hand on the coping of the bridge, without a moment's hesitation, he vaulted over into the lake. Abderachman the Saracen sprang after him.

"How now, thou pig-headed pirate of Kapparon," broke out Count Diephold; "thou shalt pay dearly for this, if the lad doth drown!"

But Frederick was a good swimmer, and the lake was not deep. The falcon on his wrist fluttered and tugged at its jess, disturbed by this unexpected bath; but the boy held his hand high above his head and, supported by the Saracen, soon reached the shore. Here the retainers of the Chancellor crowded around him, and springing to the saddle of a ready war-horse, the lad shouted: "Ho, for Palermo, all! which chief shall first reach St. Agatha's gate with me, to him will I yield myself!" and, wheeling his horse, he dashed through the mingled bands and sped like an arrow through the gardens of La Zisa.

The three contesting captains looked at one another in surprise.

"The quarry hath slipped," laughed Count Diephold. "By St. Nicholas of Myra, though, the lad is of the true Suabian eagle's brood. Try we the test, my lords."

There was a sudden mounting of steeds, a hurrying gallop after the flying king; but the Chancellor's band, being already in the saddle, had the advantage, and as young King Frederick and Walter the Chancellor passed under St. Agatha's pointed arch, the knights of the Crested Boar and of the Aloe-stalk saw in much disgust the great-gate close in their faces, and they were left on the wrong side of Palermo's walls,—outwitted by a boy.

But the baffled knights were not the men to give up the chase so easily. Twenty Pisan galleys, manned by Count Diephold's fighting men, lay in the Cala port of Palermo. That very night, they stormed under the walls of Castellamare, routed the Saracens of the royal guard, sent Walter the Chancellor flying for his life toward Messina; and, with young Frederick in his power, Diephold, the usurping Count of Acerra, ruled Sicily in the name of the poor little king.

In the royal palace at Palermo, grand and gorgeous with columns and mosaics and gilded walls, this boy of thirteen—Frederick of Hohenstaufen, Emperor-elect of Germany, King of Sicily, and "Lord of the World"—sat, the day after his capture by Count Diephold, sad, solitary, and forlorn.