Constance, King Roger’s daughter, had early made her choice for peace and safety by retiring into the veiled seclusion of the convent. But even the coif of the religieuse was no sure guard if the woman who wore it was an heiress, or of royal blood, and, the German alliance being needed after her father’s death, she was plucked forth by her brother, and in spite of her vows wedded to Henry of Hohenstaufen, son of Frederick Barbarossa, a man of such nature she must have hated him from the first. She bore him one son, and when her brother and her nephew—William the Bad and William the Good—were both dead without heirs, Henry Hohenstaufen immediately laid claim to the Sicilian crown in the name of his son. The Sicilians, however, had no mind to be ruled by the Germans, and chose instead Tancred, son of the House of de Hauteville, though with a bar sinister upon his shield. Tancred—a good and able sovereign—fought off Henry for five years, but then he too was dead, and only his widow and infant son stood between Henry, now Emperor of Germany, and the much-lusted-after throne of Sicily. Against the wish of Constance, who would have gladly abjured her rights, the German invaded the island and after incredible cruelties and ravagings reduced the widow and baby King to such straits that they negotiated an honourable surrender. But no sooner were they in Henry’s hands than the child was murdered, and there ensued a reign of abominable oppressions and furious revolts, stamped out each time with blood and fire, and followed by still bitterer injustice and plunderings. When matters had reached a stage of desperation Henry died suddenly while besieging a rebellious town.
Now in the Middle Ages no charge was so frequently and lightly made as that of poisoning. Nearly all sudden deaths not wrought by cold steel were attributed to some secret malfeasance by drugs. The fear of it fairly obsessed the mediæval mind, and gave rise to legends of poisoned gloves and rings, deadly smelling-balls and pounce boxes, and fatal chalices. A whole series of myths grew around it. Modern bacteriological discoveries, and a knowledge of ptomaines, incline the modern mind to believe that many a poor wretch brutally done to death for the crime of poisoning really died an innocent martyr to medical ignorance. Yet Henry’s taking off was so welcome and so opportune, and that Constance had struggled to protect her fellow countrymen and kinspeople from his cruelties was so well known, it began to be breathed about that she was a second Judith who had reached out in agony to protect her people, even though the blow fell upon the father of her child. At all events, whatever the truth may have been, she, when she buried Henry with imperial pomp, cut off her magnificent hair and laid it in his tomb. Then, sending away the Germans, she ruled “in peace with great honour” until the son she had trained to mercy and virtue was ready to take her place.
Now they all lie here together under their pompous canopies, and whatever may be the real dramas of those fierce and turbulent lives, the great porphyry sarcophagi combine to turn a face of cynical and haughty silence to the importunate questioning of peeping tourists.
In 1781 the tombs were opened by the Spanish King Ferdinand I., who found Constance’s son Frederick robed and crowned, with sword and orb beside his pillow, and almost lifelike in preservation. Henry too was almost unchanged by the six hundred years that had passed in such change and turmoil beyond the walls of his silent tomb, and he lay wrapped from head to heel in yellow silk with the heavy blond tresses of his wife laid upon his breast, still golden despite the lapse of long centuries, but “nulle ne peut dire si c’est le dernier sacrifice d’une femme dévouée, ou l’homage ironique d’une reine contrainte à choisir entre deux devoirs; placée entre son époux et son peuple, entre sa famille et sa patrie.”
Gaspero was a gift—a priceless parting gift from the Northman, who had gone farther south to the Punic shores from whence had come the first settlers of the Palermian Coast. And to console Jane and Peripatetica for the loss of his charming boyish gaiety he had made over to them that treasure. For Gaspero not only drove the smartest and most comfortable of all the victorias on hire to the public, but he was an artist in the matter of sight-seeing. A true gastronome, mingling flavours with delicate wisdom; keeping delicious surprises up his sleeve lest one’s spirit might pall, and mingling tombs and sunshine, crypts and “molto bella vistas,” history and the colourful daily life of the people, with a masterhand. And all so fused in the warm atmosphere of his own sympathetic and indulgent spirit that “touristing” became a feast of the soul unknown to those not guided by his discreet and skilful judgment. He knew where one might purchase honey which bees had brewed from orange flowers into a sublimated perfume; and he introduced them to certain patisseries at Cafleisch’s that gave afternoon tea a new meaning.
It was Gaspero who took them to the lofty shrine of Santa Rosalia on Monte Pellegrino; that grotto where lived the royal maiden hermit, and where lie her bones within the tomb on which Gregorio Tedeschi has made an image of her in marble with a golden robe, glowing dimly in the light of a hundred lamps. On that rosy height, dominating the beautiful landscape, Gaspero told them the story of the niece of William the Good, whose asceticism and devotion set so deep a seal of reverence upon the people of Palermo that they enshrined her as the city’s patron saint, and still celebrate her memory every year with a great festival. All the population climb the hill in July to say a prayer in her windy eyrie, and the enormous car bearing her image is dragged through the city’s streets, so towering in its gilded glories that one of the city gates has been unroofed to permit of its entrance. At that time the Marina—the wide sea-front street—instead of being merely a solemn Corso for the staid afternoon drive of the upper classes, becomes the scene of a sort of Pagan Saturnalia. The Galoppo takes place then—races of unmounted free horses—delicious races, Gaspero says, in which there can be no jockeying, and in which the generous-blooded animals strive madly to distance each other from sheer love of the sport and the rivalry. A gay people’s revel, this, of flying hoofs and tossing manes; of dancing feet; of cries and songs; mandolins, pipes, and guitars fluting and twittering. The water-sellers with their glittering carts and delicate bubble-like bottles crying acqua fredda, offering golden orange juice, and the beloved pink anisette. The Polichinello booths, the open-air puppet shows, the toy-sellers with their tall poles hung with sparkling trifles, the tables spread with dainties of rosy sugar, with melting pastries, with straw-covered flasks of wine. All perspiring, talking, laughing, guzzling, gormandising in honour of the anæmic, ascetic girl who passed long, lonely, silent days and nights in passionate ecstasies and visions in those high, voiceless solitudes. Gaspero made it all very vivid, with hands, lips, eyes. He was possessed with the drama and strange irony of it.
“Have the Signorine ever seen a Sicilian puppet show?” Gaspero demanded, à propos of nothing in particular, turning from a brown study on the box to inquire.
He plainly intended that this should be a memorable day.