Emperor Frederick's hawking party rides toward Foggia:
"At their backs the sun cast long yellow beams and blue shadows through air still warm, still full of earth odors. Ahead of them, gleamed the walls, turrets, towers, spires of the city; glass and gilt flung light at their eyes. Loud from yonder, faint from chapels strewn across the countryside, bells pealed for vespers." (p. 392)
To summarize:
yellow beams, blue shadows, gleaming city;
warm air;
earth odors;
pealing bells.
I read the passage confident that sound would be mentioned before this paragraph ended.
Frederick and his men disregard the call to prayer. The emperor says, "'...if time allows...,'" (p. 395) not "...if God allows." This fictionalized Fredrick represents the triumph of the state over the church, of actual temporal power over alleged eternal authority, and it is as if he intuits that time has been crucial to his ascendancy.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
What * I * remembered from this part of "Amazement of the World" was Anderson describing Frederick II in terms showing him as far less strained and worn down as he was in OUR timeline at the same period. Because the Frederick of the beta timeline never had to struggle with a strong willed Gregory IX.
Ad astra! Sean
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