They went unnoticed, for what cared for them the peasants that
sang at their labours in the contado?
They met a merchant, whose servant was urging his laden sumpters up the
hilly road to the city on the heights, and they passed him with a
courteous greeting. Farther they came upon a mounted company of nobles
and ladies, returning from a hawking party, and followed by attendants
bearing their hooded falcons, and their gay laughter still rang in
Francesco's ears after he had passed from their sight and vanished in the
purple mists of eventide that came up to meet him from the river.
They turned westward towards the Apennines, and pushed on after night had
fallen, until the fourth hour, when at Francesco's suggestion they drew
rein before a sleepy, wayside locanda, and awoke the host to demand
shelter. There they slept no longer than until matins, so that the grey
light of dawn saw them once more upon their way, and by the time the sun
had struck with its first golden shaft the grey crest of the old hills,
they drew rein on the brink of the roaring torrent at the foot of the
mighty crag that was crowned by the Castle of Roccaleone.
Grim and gaunt it loomed above the fertile vale, with that torrent
circling it in a natural moat, like a giant sentinel of the Apennines
that were its background. And now the sunlight raced down the slopes of
the old mountains like a tide. It smote the square tower of the keep,
then flowed adown the wall, setting the old grey stone a-gleaming, and
flashing back from a mullioned window placed high up.
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