Chapter 9

"Aye, Father," she admitted sadly, "but it is to steady mine own judgment _to judge of theirs_--that I have sent for thee. The question is not for Court Councillors, but for one who hath no part nor lot in this matter--who is often in meditation on holy matters, and hath won wisdom."

He made a motion of deprecation, but she went on speaking in her clear, even voice, still questioning: "Thou knowest well the history of the kings of Lusignan?"

He bowed his head in assent.

"And the history of the life of the King--my husband?" She dwelt on the word with inexpressible tenderness--the slight pause that followed it was like unuttered music.

Did she know? Was it possible that she knew? he asked himself.

But the question came again.

"And the provisions of his will--for myself and for--for others?" A wave of color had flushed her cheek and brow.

He looked at her searchingly, seeking for words that might best comfort. "I know them," he said, "the provisions of the will having been told me by your Majesty's messenger: and I, being a Greek, and the friend of the people, that which toucheth them, toucheth me. My daughter, the sins of the race descend from father to son, and are in the blood; and there hath been no loving care of holy women about his childhood--which should be remembered and win forgiveness."

"It is no question of forgiveness," she answered proudly, "of which I would speak with thee--_that_ lieth between our Holy Mother in Heaven and the souls of those who suffer." She seemed to dismiss the subject with an imperious wave of her slight hand. "It is a question of human judgment in which that of a holy man may avail, but in which this knowledge is necessary--else had it not been spoken of."

She paused for a moment to gather strength, while the old man watched her in growing wonder--so young--so wronged--so tender--so brave--so strong to endure!

Hagios Johannes the elder had been known through the long years of his canonization as _Lampadisti_, the _illumined_: and as the prior listened, he prayed with fervor that the wisdom of his sainted predecessor might descend upon his soul.

"My Father," she resumed with a great effort, "I knew not of this history of the last of our Kings of Cyprus, until my marriage had been made.... I knew not of any right of Carlotta, being _own_ daughter to the King, the father of my husband"--again that tremulous pause of unuttered music--"to contest the crown with him, until I learned it in Cyprus, these few weeks past."

Her head drooped lower, but she went on resolutely. "I knew not, until I came to Cyprus--for they who knew and should have told me, held the knowledge from me--that any might question the right of Janus--my husband--to this kingdom of Cyprus--he being only son to the King. For I knew not that his mother was _not_ the Queen, until I came hither."

She paused again to gather strength, lifting her guileless great eyes to his, in agonized appeal, while he watched her dumbly.

"And now, my Father," she said, throwing back her head with sudden vigor, and with the dignity of a great resolve, "this is my question, which hath come to me in the watches of the night and will not be denied, and for which I have summoned thee. I--being wife to Janus, who hath been crowned King of this people--and I, with him, crowned Queen; and by his will left Queen of Cyprus--with Council, appointed by him, to help me rule; shall I, a Christian woman--a Venetian and _not_ a Cyprian--his widow--_hold this kingdom against Carlotta_, who is daughter to the King, the father of my husband--and to the rightful Queen, Elenà--his father's lawful wife?"

He was dumbfounded and could not answer her at once; but while he sought for words he bowed his head in mute reverence.

"My daughter," he said at length, "hath this question been put to thee by any men of Cyprus?"

"Nay, Father; but it hath come to me in these sad nights, because I fain would do the _right_--that which is well for my people: and life is very difficult."

"My people," again, uttered with the accent of a mother who folds her child to her heart--it was a revelation; but he must probe more deeply before he could answer her.

"And this palace--and all the palaces of this estate?" he asked slowly, as if he could not comprehend her. "Thou wouldst renounce this splendor when none hath asked it of thee?"

"I would even bear the weight of it, if it be _right_," she said, "though rest were sweeter."

"Thou wouldst be free, perchance, to seek thy home in Venice?"

"Nay, nay!" she exclaimed, shrinking from him--"never Venice again--since she hath sent me hither, knowing all, and told me not. I cannot go back to Venice!"

He pondered gravely.

"Then what is thy will, my daughter?"

"To do the right!" she cried vehemently; "out of my own great sorrow to expiate the wrong! May it not be, my Father, if I shrink not from the right at any cost?"

"I will consider," he said, "since thy will is strong for this sacrifice."

"Sacrifice!" she cried, in her amazement breaking all reserve. "Oh, Father! To call _this_ 'sacrifice,' when the very light of life is gone from me! He was so beautiful and gracious--with such a light in his eyes--and I thought--oh, I _thought_ we were so happy! And now--oh, God, it breaks my heart--I _loved_ him!"

"Daughter----"

"May not the suffering of one atone for another's sin?" she questioned feverishly.

"Nay--leave that thought, it is too heavy for thee: and not revealed to men, that they may declare it."

"Pray for him, Father! Thou wilt pray for him--thou and all those who come to thee. There will be many, many prayers and God will hear. For his people loved him--none could stay from loving him, he was so winsome. Mother of Mercies, thou wilt take my anguish for his atonement!--_Oh I suffer!_"

The words came in a low moan, wrung from her unaware. Father Johannes caught the small hands which she had flung out before her clenched, in her passionate struggle for control, and with faltering motions of unaccustomed gentleness, he soothed her until she had grown quieter and he could unclasp them. Then he spoke strange words, out of a great compassion:

"Christ knoweth; for He is Love--and He will save!"

"There is more," she gasped with her spent voice--"but I dare not name it--the thought of it is torture. But it is not true; Madonna mia! it _is not_ true!"

The strong man could bear no more; he groaned in spirit and ground his hands against his breast--his lip curling with scorn at the pain of his own torn flesh. "Tell it!" he commanded; "it _cannot_ be true."

She looked at him, hope dawning in her stricken face. "The words they speak--they who are his enemies--that he had forsworn his faith: it is not true."

"It is the very machination of the Evil One!" he thundered. "I know the slander and the man who fathered it, for spite. And may Heaven forgive its maker--for he hath need--standing high in the holy place of Earth. I _know_ it is not true!"

He looked his faith into her eyes until he had banished her terror, and she put out her wan hand, grateful, for his assurance.

Then he turned from her abruptly and wandered away to weigh her question, looking into the depths of the great forest while he pondered and prayed to be enlightened. He must have sight of his own solitudes if he would keep his judgment free, and though she called to him, timidly, thinking he had forgotten her, he made no answer, being not yet ready. Surely, it could not be God's will that so fine a spirit should resign her claim to their uneasy crown!

It was long before he returned to her side, for the shadows were lengthening and a crimson light flamed in the West.

"Daughter," he said with deep solemnity, "it hath come to me with full light in answer to thy question, that thou, being crowned Queen and consecrated in the Duomo of Nikosia, together with King Janus, thy husband--whom this people loved--and decreed by him to hold this realm, which--for the first time in many years, and by his hand, is now united under one sovereign, that thy duty biddeth thee hold and rule it against all other claimants--were it even Carlotta who hath once been called its Queen.

"Rule thou this people with the fear of Heaven in thy true heart--so God shall make thee wise!"

She came slowly, as to a heavy task, and knelt before him, with clasped hands, kissing the crucifix which he held out to her; the red light streamed through the arches with a fierce illumination.

"Father--and Janus!" she cried--"hear my vow!

"To do for my people as Heaven and the Madonna shall teach me: to bear them in my heart and seek their happiness; to live for them alone! And if harm hath been--oh God, if harm hath been done--to nerve me to the more strenuous duty, that wrong may be forgiven!"

XV

It was a moonless night in June, with lowering clouds and a threat of distant thunder echoing from the far mountains.

A crowd was gathering, low-voiced and eager, in the Piazza San Nicolò: a crowd chiefly of the people, and the faces and costumes of many races came out grotesquely under the spasmodic glare of the torches which flared about the standard of Cyprus, in the centre of the square--the standard was tied with mourning and wreathed with cypress. There were many women--here and there a peasant with a child slumbering in her arms, or clinging sleepily to the tawny silk scarf woven under her own mulberry trees. Here and there, with the fitful motion of the wind, the light touched the fair hair of a chance peasant from the province of _La Kythrea_ into gleams of gold that a Venetian patrician might envy, or brought into sudden relief the smothered passion of some beautiful, dark Greek face. But the women were chiefly of the lower Cypriote peasant-type, heavy-featured and unemotional. There was a sprinkling of monkish cowls and of the red fez from the Turkish village of Afdimou which lay in seeming friendliness of relation close to the village of Ormodos, whose population was wholly Greek.

In front of the long façade of the palace of Famagosta a cordon of soldiers stood motionless, while before them the mounted guard paced slowly to and fro; and across the Piazza, with that impatient, surging crowd between, was faintly heard the steady footfall of the sentinels, measuring and remeasuring with unemotional precision their narrow beat before the entrance to the world-famed fortress of Famagosta.

A group of nobles in eager, low-voiced converse crossed the square, pressed through the cordon of soldiers and gave the password and the great door was opened to admit them and closed again.

Two burghers picked out a face among them, as the torches of their escorts flared.

"That was Marin Rizzo, Counsellor to the Queen; a man of power--unscrupulous."

"And more a friend--I have heard it whispered in Nikosia--to Naples than to Cyprus."

"Hast evidence for thy speech?" the other questioned eagerly in a lower tone.

"It is for that we must watch; the time is threatening."

"But Messer Andrea Cornaro was with him: he will know how to guard the interests of the Queen, having been so great a favorite with our Janus, and one for management, despite his courtly ways! Without our Messer Andrea, his niece had never been our Queen."

"Nay--nor if His Holiness had had his will. I had the tale from a source to trust, though the story was kept hushed. It would take one like our Janus, with his royal ways, to scorn the flattering offers of His Holiness! There were also threats!"

"Nay; threats would never move him, except to see the comedy thereof and make his mood the pleasanter! But I had not dreamed him saint enough for the Holy Father to sue to him for an alliance."

"Ah, friend, the ways of those above us be strange! But it was for this, I take it, that His Holiness--who hath a temper most uncommon earthly--sent none to represent him at the Coronation of the King."

The other shrugged his shoulders. "It lacked for naught in splendor; it was a day for Cyprus and for Nikosia."

"_Vanitas Vanitatum_," droned a friar of the Latin Church who had been standing near enough to catch echoes of their speech.

Both men glanced towards him and instinctively moved away.

"Aye; little it matters now--coronation honors or splendors for him! But he had a way with him!"

"And he was one for daring!"

They crossed themselves and lapsed into silence, as their eyes sought the banners drooping, shrouded, before the palace-gates, near the statue of their dead King--a very Apollo for beauty--the pedestal heaped high with withered tokens of loyalty and mourning.

But the mass of the waiting crowd were silent, scarcely exchanging a whispered confidence;--so still that the long, low boom of the surf upon the shore reached them distinctly, like a responsive heart-throb. They could hear the storm-waves outside the port dashing wildly against the rock-bound coast, with fierce suggestions of strife. But they knew that within their sheltered harbor their waiting galleys rode at anchor, ready to sail at a moment's notice--for Venice, for Rome, for Egypt--though the flags they bore were still at half-mast, with their King but a month dead.

There was a sense of suppressed excitement in the hush of the throng; almost, one might have said, an atmosphere of prayer. For the great bell of San Nicolò--the bell with that wonderful voice of melody--was ringing softly, as for vespers; continuously, as if the people had not answered to the call. Yet many a low-voiced "Ave" responded to the chime as now and again some toil-worn hand lifted the rosary that hung from a girdle, or clasped a rude cross closer.

Restless under the chiming, some simple mother who had fought for her place in the crowd before the palace, deep in her heart besought the blessed Madonna to forgive her because she would not yield it to kneel at the altar in the Duomo; while leaning over the little one slumbering on her breast, she kissed it with a meaning holy as prayer, and did not dream that the angels were watching.

The only steady light in all the square was the soft gleam, as of moonlight, streaming through the windows of the Duomo out into the mist, and here and there among the crowd some face turned towards it and was heartened.

For back of the splendid marble columns of the peristyle, when the light from some torch flashed suddenly upon their polished surfaces, the long lines of palace-windows lay dark; and it was growing late.

"They say that the holy sisters keep vigil this night in the Convent of the Blessed Santa Croce," murmured a woman's voice.

"Aye," another answered her reverently, "for the love of Santa Elenà and the Holy Relic, they will bless our beautiful Lady!"

The theme unsealed their peasant tongues, for this relic brought from the East by the Mother of Constantine, was the glory of Cyprus, and their speech flowed more freely.

"The most Reverend our Archbishop should send for that Santa Croce in procession, to bring it hither--for truly it can do anything!" another woman cried eagerly. She crossed herself and bowed devoutly as she spoke. "For all the world knoweth that once, when it had been lost and the good pater would prove if he had really found it, he held it in the heart of the fire until it glowed like the very flame itself. But when he drew it forth, it was burned not at all--_Santissima Vergine!_--but wood as before--being too holy to burn. A miracle! And then----"

"I also know the miracle about Queen Alixe," another woman interposed, eager to show her knowledge of the marvel of the Relic, "for my sister dwelleth by the gate of the Convent of the Troödos, and she hath much learning of the most blessed Relic;--how that Queen Alixe laid the bit on her tongue--she who could never speak fairly--more like a blockhead of a stammering peasant than a Royal lady--may Heaven forgive me! And how for ever after, her speech flowed freely, so that all might understand her. It must be good to be in Cyprus."

"Holy Mother! but it should be lonely in the great palace," a young peasant-mother confided to her nearest neighbor, as she shifted the baby to her other arm and arranged her wrappings tenderly, with hands that looked too rough for such loving ministration. She was thinking of her Gioan who would be waiting for her with a gruff greeting when she returned, but who was good to her, if he often scolded when the porridge was burned. But men were that way about women's work, and never knew that an angel would forget when the baby cried. "_But_ she was growing heavy, blessed be the Madonna! Why wasn't there a light?--It would be good if one might sleep!"

A mounted messenger came out from the fort and dashed across the square; the crowd holding breath, parting silently before him, but surging tumultuously back, to wait--though they were very weary and the shifting clouds were dropping rain. But there were yet no lights in the palace windows.

It was growing darker and the wind was rising; a quick flurry of drops extinguished some of the torches, and in the greater gloom the voice of the wind wailed like an evil omen. But still the women would not go--waiting for that sign of _the light in the palace windows_.

Only they pressed closer to each other and crossed themselves in terror, with smothered ejaculations and adjurations, shuddering from the superstitions that enthralled their simple natures; for at this season, in Cyprus rain was most unwonted, surely a sign of Heaven's displeasure! Still they waited in the darkness of the night, with shivering hearts, with the wind growling like angry fiends out beyond the harbor and down from the environing hills--upheld to this costly tribute of devotion by the dumb, dog-like loyalty which their beautiful young Queen had roused within them, by a smile on her wedding-day and the sorrow that had quenched it.

"It is good, _va_, to see the light in the Duomo! There is many a good candle burning for her at the shrine of Our Lady of Mercy, this night."

"An' there were none for ourselves, we should find one for her!"

"Not a woman of our _casal_ but held a candle in her hand as we came in at the gate of the city; for the silkworms have given us silk and enough to spin this year; and if they had not, we would not grudge it to her. For she hath a smile like an angel. May our Holy Mother bless her for them both."

"And beautiful--beautiful so that it warms the heart! Dost thou remember the day when she came out of the Duomo, beautiful as the Madonna herself--may our Blessed Lady in Heaven forgive me!--with a necklace and a crown flashing fire, that our Holy Mother of Jesus might wear on the Feast of the Annunciation?--and the smile on her face?--and the King beside her----? Ah, but it was a wedding--Holy Saints!--and they ought to be happy--the great ones!"

"Hush then!--But surely 'tis a sin that they left the mourning upon the banner to-night, one should have more respect! If I could get into the Duomo for a drop of Holy water--Sancta Maria!"

But the crowd had swelled to hopeless density, and both women threw out their hands with the magical gesture that never failed to exorcise the evil spirits brought near by such an omen. Then they touched each other reassuringly, and crossed themselves and were silent again.

For a beautiful Greek, not of their own class, stepped out from her group of attendants, and knelt on the pavement, stretching out her hands towards the dark palace with a prayer--they could hear her murmuring,--"For _her_ sake--for the sake of the innocent one who hath been wronged--Holy Mother of Angels, grant us one of her blood to rule this land!"

Her heavy veil of mourning fell aside as she hastily rose and joined her attendants, disappearing in the crowd.

"Madama da Patras! Could it be Madama da Patras, mother to the King, kneeling on the pavement in the night!"

"Her heart is broken with grief, and she thought not to be seen, poor lady."

Two nobles were wending their way with difficulty across the Piazza, they lingered a moment, arrested by the words of the prayer.

"This night may make the difference between anarchy and peace for Cyprus," one of them said to his companion, as they resumed their struggle.

"Aye--Cyprus for the Cypriotes,--instead of Genoa, or Venice, or Naples."

"Or Queen Carlotta?"

"_Maledetto!--Who spoke?_"

But the challenge was unanswered. The noble who had dared to name aloud the daughter of their last Queen--the sister of their late King--had been lost in the darkness before the trusty guard, _sent from Venice_, could make sure of him.

"The fellow should be thrust through for his insolence. A Cyprian master is good enough for Cyprus," they confided to each other, as they made pause again, emerging from the crowd at the other end of the piazza, before the gate of the fortress.

"What matters it?" his comrade answered him nonchalantly, "for canst thou tell me the color of a Cypriote now? and his native tongue may be liker that of Spain or Venice than of France or Greece. My Lord of Piscopia hath the color of Venice."

"But of the very household of our Queen:--speak soft! Our Queen?--Perchance this night may be her undoing--how runs King Giacomo's will? Yea, for the matter of the fiefs, she hath been royal with her gifts--a matter not so lordly when confiscation cometh thus easily."

"But she hath a royal way with her, as of one born to the throne, and for that matter it were not strange for one of the house of Cornelii--they held their heads proudly enough in Venice, I am told; and her mother was of the blood of a Comnenus--more royal than a Lusignan, if not so well tempered."

"Aye; she is well enough."

"And she hath a grace that hath verily won the people; never was there such a crowd in the time of any other Queen. See how they throng before her gates to-night--poor simple souls--conquered by a smile that costeth naught."

"Nay; it is not strange; for the people entered little into the thought of Queen Carlotta, or Queen Elenà. There is no harm in her; she is a good child, and beautiful enough to be a saint; with too little understanding of the ways of our court: too great a saint for Janus--by every blessed saint of Cyprus! But I had rather she had more earthliness and wile than be the pawn of Venice. A Cyprian for the Cypriotes! Our Janus were better;--a Lusignan--not too much a saint--not a child nor a woman neither--but masterful: less the pawn of Venice."

"As well of Venice with her fleets and commerce, as of Naples--if it be not a Cyprian. How sayest thou? And it was King Janus himself who gave Pelendria--that most royal and bountiful fief of a prince of Lusignan--into the hands of that parvenu of Naples, _Rizzo_! The King verily guessed not his quality when he named him to such estate! He would outrule monarchs."

"_Pace!_"

Close to them, in the crowd, they heard the sound of a soldier's lance rasping the pavement as he stood at rest. One not far off seemed to answer his signal.

The storm was growing fiercer; the sullen mutterings of the wind broke into a shriek, with a terrible downpour of rain; but the rushing crowd was stayed by a cry of joy that rose above the tumult--a cry of love from the heart of the people--

"Mater Beatissima! _A light in the palace window!_"

A candle flamed in a dark window--two--more--a light in every casement!

The gates of the palace were thrown wide and a splendid mounted corps rode forth amidst a flare of torches--white plumes of rejoicing waving from their casques--white banners raised high on the points of their lances--while the herald, in full armor with vizor up, bore proudly before the people the silken banner with the arms of Cyprus blazoned upon it--the white, royal banner of a Prince of Galilee.

The waiting people went wild with joy, for the bells of all the churches of Famagosta were pealing a jubilee, and the night rang with shouts of homage for the Prince of Galilee, the heir to the crown of Cyprus: