In the dim confines of the prison cell, light crept through the narrow window and cast long shadows across the cold stone floor. The din of the outside world seemed distant, as if the walls of Castel dell’Ovo held back the seas of human affairs along with the Gulf of Naples. Conradin and Frederick sat on the rough wooden benches that had been both bed and council table in these last days, facing death together in the quiet as they had on fields of battle. Between them a chessboard lay, its pieces poised in an impending checkmate.

“I knew this day would come, that the words of the Sybil would prove true,” Conradin said. His voice was low but unwavering. His blue eyes glinted in the pale light.

Frederick nodded. “And yet you chose this way,” he said.

“I would choose it again, even if called to choose a thousand times. I owe that to my grandfather –– and to the Empire to come.”

The long nights of travel over the frozen mountains, the planning of strategy, the devising of tactics, the clash of battles, all came to a point here in the vestibule of death.

Frederick reached out and clasped Conradin’s right hand with his own, his left on Conradin’s forearm. “I too have chosen this path, without regret,” he said.

Down the length of Italy Conradin had travelled until he stood in the mouth of the cave he sought. The smell of deep earth and decay rose around him. Before him in the shifting shadows and vapors stood the Sybil of Cumae. Slowly, Apollo took hold of her, and her visage fell into a frenzy. Her features contorted, and her hair swirled around her in a chaotic torrent. The cave seemed to echo with an unseen heartbeat.

Conradin felt himself pulled toward the Sybil by unseen threads. Her gray eyes, searching wildly, locked onto his as if reaching into his soul. Her voice resonated deeply in the stony cavern. “Scion of Staufer,” she said, “your path is noble and guided by destiny. Your journey leads to trial and the catastrophe of mortal life.” She unfolded the prophecy of a glorious flame that would burn fiercely and swiftly be extinguished. He would reach for the throne of the Romans and fall through trickery and betrayal. Yet he would also gain immortality, not of flesh, but of undying fame. “Your life shall be a beacon for those who strive against the shadow of decay.”

Conradin opened his eyes to the morning sun slanting in through the high windows of his bed chamber within the familiar walls of Heidelberg Castle. The dream clung to him like the morning mist, ghostly yet palpable. In his memory, the Sybil continued to chant. He moved his hand along the linen bedclothes under which he lay. No man chooses whether or not to die. A man’s choices pertain only to how he will live. The Sybil had not taken his freedom, but granted him the gift of clarity. His resolve grew stronger, tempered by the Sybil’s words like steel in a blacksmith’s forge. The dream of Cumae crystallized his will to cast his life on the side of glory, to make of his story not marginalia, but preamble. He was King of Jerusalem; he would sit on the throne of Sicily as well.

The scent of pine entered through the open window with the light of the August dawn in the Palatinate. The clamor of the court beginning its day rose up from below.  Conradin sat in the quiet of his solar, feeling very distant from the lands he wished to claim. The letters from Italy lay scattered before him on the oak table. He had read them all more than once, with their pleas in tones of urgency and hope.

Frederick stood by the window, the light casting shadows across his features, glinting in his brown eyes. His posture reflected the gravity of his thought and the strength of his determination. “The Ghibellines look to you as the dawn after a dark night,” he said, “but the sun must first traverse the horizon.”

Conradin ran his fingers over the broken seals of the letters. His blue eyes fixed on them, and he thought of the Sybil’s prophecy. “Turning from destiny would be the greatest folly,” he said. “Far better to follow the path shadowed by the eagles of Rome.”

The walls of the chamber seemed to press in on them. “The eagle flies high above the land,” Frederick said, “yet he is the purpose of the earth.” He looked at Conradin.

“The Ghibellines see in me the revival of Roman glory, the end of papal dominion, and the expulsion of the pope’s Angevin vassal,” Conradin said, “but fate has yet to weave those threads.”

Frederick tilted his head and looked at Conradin. “Courage is one of the cardinal virtues, no?”

“Yes,” Conradin nodded. “The Greeks call it andreia. It is the ground of all other virtues, including greatness of soul.”

Frederick took a step toward him. “Despite the objections of the old, our youth is not a weakness but a strength, a flame to ignite the wills of those who dream of rebirth.”

* * *

The jagged silhouette of the Alps loomed like watchmen of history, witnesses to the passage of legions and emperors, friends and foes. Summer gave way to fall as Conradin embarked on the ascent, leading his men forward, Frederick riding at his side. With each step, the air grew thinner, and the distance greater from the safety of familiar lands. The shadows of his fathers leading armies across these mountains moved before him, with Conradin the last of the Staufers to make the passage. 

The rocky pass was a silent adversary that challenged every step. The stark beauty of the snow-capped peaks, under the azure expanse of sky, reflected the majesty of their quest, the glory to be sought before death.

Frederick lifted his head in the chill breeze and smiled. “The mountains do not yield easily,” he said. “They demand a tribute of will and strength.”

“They are our threshold,” Conradin said. “In the valleys and lowlands beyond, we will find our fate.”

* * *

Conradin entered Verona through the Porta San Fermo, past the crumbling Roman walls of brick and stone, a doleful testament to the fallen past. The autumn scent of olive and cypress gave way to the pungent smell of the crowds. The noon sun fell bright on the white columns of the gate. His heart was buoyed by the fervent welcome of the Veronese, whose shouts greeted him as a noble heir and the harbinger of a new day, their hope against the dead weight of a false regime. The streets were alive with the clamor of jubilation, lined with faces reflecting anticipation and relief after long suffering––all converging on him. The crowd chanted his name like a chorus. Conradin felt the gravity of the moment in the tumult of celebration. The sea of faces, turned towards him with eyes alight, impressed on him the weight of his calling.

In the heart of Verona, standing amidst its ancient ruins and living streets, he claimed the kingship of Sicily and declared war against all who denied the right of his house. The remnants of Roman glory, from the walls to the astounding amphitheater, stood as witnesses, reminders of decay and the possibility of rebirth. What had been, could be attained again––and surpassed. Their very stones were silent proclamations to Conradin that one could live with honor.

As the shadows lengthened across the cobblestones, the celebrations around him seemed a spectacle hanging between past and future. His eyes kept returning to the ruins; they pulled him beyond time and territory, challenging him to rebuild their fragments into something new.

* * *

Conradin walked through the cold autumn mist towards the newly erected wooden platform on the Campo Maricino, with guards in Angevin livery on either side. His composure gave no sign of the end toward which he advanced. He took each step with the dignity and defiance that had marked his quest from the mountains and valleys of the Palatinate to the volcanic landscapes of Naples. The scaffold stood as the final monument of his path, stark against the rising sun.

Conradin ascended the wooden steps like a sovereign entering his court. There was no tremor in his step, no fear in his gaze, only a slight smile on face, as though he reckoned his sacrifice a triumph, not a defeat. He looked with serenity at the solemn faces gathered to witness his end. The scaffold seemed a stand from which he might contemplate the world. Nemesis would take him now as surety, but she would return to take the balance in full from the Angevins. In the silence of his heart, Conradin called out with power to men not yet born. He looked to the horizon and the glory of the rising sun.

* * *

Conradin entered Rome through the Porta Flaminia with the setting sun casting a golden hue over the city, illuminating his fair hair. The streets, adorned with Ghibelline banners bearing the eagle and serpent, thrummed with the cheers of a jubilant crowd. Young girls scattered rose petals before him, covering the dirt with shades of red and pink, perfuming the air with their fragrance.

Henry the Senator, clad in a cloak of midnight blue and gold, made his way through the dense crowd with ease. His robust voice soared above the din to welcome Conradin. “Rome has long awaited a leader with the fire of her founders in his blood. Tonight, she rejoices.” The crowd’s fervor escalated as the procession commenced, weaving through the city like a brightly colored ribbon.

The festivities continued throughout the day with games and music in the Campus Martius. Athletes competed under the clear blue sky. The melody of lutes, the trill of flutes, and the rhythmic beating of drums set the tempo for the dancing of the crowd. As the celebration reached its zenith, the jubilant throng led Conradin to the Pantheon.

He stood before the temple, its dome thrusting into the sky. He was enveloped in the fervor of the crowd. The shouts of the people washed over him with the heat of summer, a sea of faces that hailed him as king, a bridge to a future for which they yearned.

Signaling his guards to wait outside, he stepped into the Pantheon with only Frederick at his side. The clamor of the outside world fell away, replaced by a quiet that echoed centuries of worship, of the sacrifice and honor of countless souls. Above, a single oculus looked upon the heavens, illuminating the marbled beauty of the interior. Conradin turned around to see the niches set in the circular wall of the rotunda between the large Corinthian columns that supported the dome. Under his breath, he whispered, “all the gods.”

He felt himself a pilgrim to a temple not bound within time. The beauty of the structure seemed to stand apart from the city outside, only too subject to the assault of age, the shifting of fortune, the transience of human endeavor. He would pursue the work ahead. To resurrect the majesty of Rome required him not merely to reclaim a throne but to rekindle a spirit.

He emerged from the Pantheon into the adulation of the crowd. The sun cast long shadows among the houses and shops crowded around the ruined fountain and columns. The shadows seemed to hide the crown he sought to wear. How fragile and broken were the materials with which he had to build.

* * *

On the Palentine Plains, the sun’s glare was merciless. Conradin was eager to attack. With a sense of abandon and exhilaration, he charged at the head of his army into that of Charles of Anjou. The chaos of battle soon enveloped him, the din of clashing steel and the cries of men raising a cacophony that overwhelmed the long-practiced movements of combat. He found himself absorbed in the tactics of the moment, thrust after maneuver, maneuver after thrust.

Dust obscured his sight, and the iron scent of blood filled his nostrils as hooves thundered against the earth. Conradin’s forces, a surge of steel and flesh, overwhelmed Charles’ first two divisions. For a fleeting moment, as Conradin pierced the line, he glimpsed the glory that he sought.

A cry rang forth from the troops: Charles himself was seen fallen on the field, his banner cast down. Elation swept over Conradin’s men like a wind over golden fields. The knights, their silvered armor shining like the scales of a heavenly host, broke off combat, deeming the victory won. Not a few cantered off to loot the Angevin camp.

Too late, the enemy’s stratagem was unveiled. The fallen man was not Charles, but the knight Henri de Cousances, wearing Charles’ surcoat in trickery. Amid the tumult, Charles was not slow to spring his trap. His hidden division thundered from behind the hill, charging toward Conradin in an armored wave. This force, fresh from their careful waiting, reversed the battle’s course with disciplined wrath.

Conradin witnessed the breaking of his forces in chaos, a mosaic of confusion and despair under Anjou’s onslaught. Charles himself, astride a dark warhorse, was an avatar of fury, plunging directly into the bloodiest combat.

As the shadow of defeat rolled across the plains, Conradin and Frederick, their armor battered, were forced to flee the field, weary and stained with blood, their vision of glory swept away like the dream of a man abruptly awakened. Their steeds, lathered and wild-eyed, carried them away from a battle that had promised so much yet yielded nothing but bitterness.

* * *

Under the veil of twilight, Conradin and Frederick departed from the gates of Rome across the Campagna with a small band of followers. Along the ancient Roman road, they rode by fields and olive groves under the red, setting sun, heading southeast toward the castle of Astura and its small port. From there, they hoped to gain passage to Genoa. They passed the ruins of Roman villas, aqueducts, and temples amid vast, sparsely populated fields and marshes. The countryside was ruggedly beautiful and desolate at once. The terrain grew increasingly marshy as they drew near to Astura.

At the castle gate, men in livery rushed forward and surrounded them. Each wore a coat with an emblem in the shape of a red shield with two gold lions rampant and combatant, the coat of arms of the Fragnipane, lords of Astura. Their arrest was swift. The clasp of iron on their wrists was cold and final. They were in the hands of Guelphs, loyal to Charles.

Captivity began with a journey down the coast to Naples. Castel dell’Ovo, an edifice rising from the sea as if birthed by the Gulf of Naples, became their prison. Its walls, thick and unyielding, were a stark reminder of their plight. Enclosed within, time elongated, stretching like a taut chain, each moment a link in a procession, each shadow a ghost of a fading world.

Conradin found the silence instructive. The stones around him, imbued with the weight of time, whispered of power’s ebb and flow. His thoughts, once mirrors of the vast sky, now reflected the depth of the sea.

Friendship revealed its strength in the crucible of their fate. Frederick’s loyalty, always a flaming torch in the murk of betrayal, proved the endurance of bonds formed in shared dedication. Their conversations in low voices strengthened them against the corrosion of doubt. “A man’s destiny,” Conradin said, “is like the journey of the sun; as dawn’s light conquers the night, so the shadow of dusk overtakes even the strong. We are the vanguard who rode out too far before the van and were caught in ambush. But not in vain –– the army has now been alerted and aroused.”

* * *

Within the stone confines of Castel Capuano’s grand hall, wax candles burned in iron sconces, casting a flickering glow against the walls. The whispers of spectators seated on rough-hewn benches echoed among the vaulted ceilings, obscured by shadows and massive wooden beams. At the center of the hall, a lone bare table was set for the accused beneath a platform that held the judges’ imposing chairs of leather and carved wood.

Conradin stood alone at the table, charged absurdly with robbery and treason like a common hoodlum. The trial ordered by Charles was no quest for justice but a strained justification to put a defeated prince to death in defiance of all custom. As the accusations were read in Latin by the chief judge, detail upon preposterous detail, Conradin’s thoughts turned inward, a silent monologue among the vile voices of the courtroom. He thought of the quest that had brought him to this moment, the battles he had fought to reclaim his realm.

The glory he had sought to restore now seemed a distant star obscured by heavy clouds. The voice of the judge rose in waves of accusation. The fabricated charges were the final battle in the struggle of his enemies to crush him. His silence in the face of their accusations was no admission of guilt or defeat, but a rebuke.

The verdict was finally pronounced, the conclusion that Charles had decided in advance. Conradin was guilty, along with Frederick, and both were sentenced to decapitation. Conradin stood tall and steady, his gaze serene. The grand hall seemed to shrink around him, and the assembled sensed uneasily that there were sources of power apart from steel.

* * *

The executioner’s blade caught the sun’s rays, casting a long shadow on the scaffold. Conradin stood at the edge of the platform. He thought of the Staufer house, born in Swabia over two centuries ago, now this day come to its end. Charles stood on a dais above the scaffold, his face grave and pious. Conradin raised his eyes to Charles and was seized by a word he could not hold within. He called out to Charles in a clear resonant voice. “Hail, king of the day! Hear my word! When the Evening Star appears after the day of Resurrection, Sicily will rise up and devour the kingdom you have stolen.” The words rushed out of his body in a great exhalation, leaving stillness and calm behind.

The crowd around the scaffold stood startled and mute. Conradin’s eyes rose above Charles. There the divine and mortal realms met. A single, luminous figure stood high above them, a laurel wreath on his head. His face shone like the sun, his chiton glistened white, Alpha and Omega, Phoebus radiant and bright. The immortal spoke not with words but with silent understanding. To be immersed in the king is to be immersed in his death, buried with him to rise and walk anew in glory. Conradin knew that his sacrifice would be the seed from which a new glory would spring. He was filled not with an acceptance but a love of his fate, giving his life as a spark that would ignite the flames of rebirth.

The whole of the Staufer legacy, the dynastic ambition, the martial glory, what had begun as the pursuit of power was now lifted up. With the scaffold as his altar and the sky his temple, Conradin cast his spirit into a future in which men would reach for the heavens, and the shadow of Rome would be not a specter of the past but a promise of glory to come. With the fall of the sword, he returned to his native stars.