He was a young cavalier, with a smooth face, unvisited by beard, yet stamped with the marks of premature and sudden experience, while his slender form, clad in a jewelled doublet, was half hidden by the folds of a sweeping robe of purple, that fell from his shoulders, varied by a border of snow-white ermine.
“It is him—the page Guiseppo,” murmured the huntsman. “Mark ye, how changed he looks! His arms folded, and his merry face clad in a frown. Well-a-day! The world is all bewitched, or I’m no sinful man!”
“The page Guiseppo,” whispered the shrill-voiced steward. “Know ye not his new title? ‘My Lord Guiseppo, Baron of Masserio’—nephew of the Count Aldarin. Masserio is the name of one of the smaller baronies annexed by my lord of Florence, to the domains of Albarone. ’Tis said ’twas confiscated to the state, because its master meddled with the strange Order of the Steel, whose fame has been in our ear for these four months past.”
“Sir sentinel, canst tell me what means this peal of trumpet, this clamor at the gates of Albarone?”
As Guiseppo advanced and spoke, every one in the group was impressed to the very heart with the change that had so lately passed over the appearance and manner of the page. A score of years could not have added more solemnity to his visage, or given a more deep-toned sternness to his voice.
In a moment the Lord Guiseppo—such is now his title—was possessed of the cause of the clamor at the castle-gate, and was about to speak, when the trumpet peal ceased, and the clear bold voice of the herald, broke upon the air.
“Peace to the Lord Julian of Albarone! My master salutes the gallant knight and craves entrance into the shelter of his goodly castle! Peace to the Lord Julian of Albarone!”
“Be thy master, the Paynim Mahound himself, or the Devil his father—” rang out the hoarse tones of Balvardo, from the tower above—“He is a few days behind old Death in his salutation. Lord Julian of Albarone sleeps in the Charnel-House.”
“Then Sir Warder of the castle-gate, by thy soldierly courtesy, I pray thee inform me—doth his brother, the Scholar Aldarin yet live?”