"Thank Heaven that she hath one like thee to care for her," he answered,
gently forcing her through the doorway as he held her hand. "For I do
think the Council would willingly have her away."
In the ante-chamber scattered groups of court-ladies in deepest
mourning, were talking in low tones. They all rose as the Lady Beata
entered: but she, with only an inclination of her head passed on hastily
into the inner chamber which was the private boudoir of the Queen.
Caterina was quite alone, lying back on a low couch near an open window,
through which the moonlight streamed in long pale rays; while many soft
lights of perfumed oils, burning low in lamps of ivory, made only
moonlight within the chamber. She held the miniature of Janus pressed
against her cheek, and as the Lady Beata came towards her she tried to
welcome her with a quivering smile.
"I sent them all away, Zia mia: sometimes it seems less hard to bear
when I am quite alone."
The Lady Beata bent over her, stroking her hair caressingly, striving
for courage to break the silence.
"Caterina mia," she said at last, "it is needful to give some thought to
matters of government--the Council will not wait. Hast thou the
strength?"
"I _must_ have strength," she answered with instant resolution, rising
and laying aside the miniature with a lingering look. "Wilt thou call
Aluisi? He ever maketh me understand. It is so new to me," she pleaded
feebly, as the Lady Beata did not move.
"Carina, it will be best alone; Aluisi hath asked me to speak with thee.
If--if thou wilt read this parchment"--the Lady Beata held it out to
her--"it is the Will of the late King, Aluisi hath bidden me give it
thee."
"There is no need," Caterina answered listlessly, as the Lady Beata
opened it and put it into her hand, "the provisions have been told me."
But the other persisted. "To-morrow--for the Council say that they will
not longer wait; it will be read before the Counts of the Chamber, and
they would have the Queen take oath of fealty to Cyprus."
"I shall have the strength when to-morrow cometh," Caterina answered
wearily, and making a motion to return the parchment.
"There are other clauses; Aluisi thought it might be better to read
them here--alone--before--before----" Her face was blanched and pained,
and her words came with difficulty.
The young Queen looked at her in surprise, then, after a moment's
indecision, dropped her eyes upon the page and read the short clauses
through; then once more--as if she did not understand--then again, a
scarlet flush growing as she read.
The parchment contained but three short clauses: King Janus left his
kingdom to his wife Caterina, who was to reign, with their child, if
there should be one; or alone, if the child should die.
He provided a Council of seven to assist her with the Government:
In case of her death and the death of the child, the kingdom should
descend to each of the three other children of Janus, in the order
named. The unwedded mother of these children was not mentioned and
Caterina had never dreamed of their existence.
She stood trembling--her face slowly paling to a marble whiteness.
"_Mater Dolorosa!_" she gasped, with a moan of pain, instantly
repressed.
The Lady Beata put her arm around her to steady her; but Caterina drew
herself away, standing upright.
"Call back the Chamberlain!" she cried, imperiously; and stood
waiting--panting--until he entered the room.
Then she drew up her slight figure in defiance, her eyes flashing in her
white, white face--her voice ringing scorn as she pointed to the
document which had dropped from her hand.
"How should I believe this--this _baseness_ of my husband--your King?"
she cried. "Who hath _dared_ to fashion it?"
"Beloved Sovereign Lady"--he answered her, and for very pity could say
no more.
She turned from one to the other with an impatient, questioning,
imperious gesture.
They came nearer--slowly--silently turning upon her such faces of love
and sorrow and comprehension that the fire in her eyes died in anguish.
A quiver shot through her, but she struggled to stand, motioning them
away again when they would have helped her--she must drink this cup of
bitterness alone. "How should I believe it?" she repeated brokenly,
still studying their faces.--"How _should_ I believe it--ye are not
faithless to him--to me----?"
There was no need to answer her: again they looked their unspeakable
compassion.
But as Caterina's eyes rested upon the parchment once more, a sudden
hope came to her. "The will of the King was written in his own hand,"
she cried eagerly. "Thou hast said it, Aluisi; this is not the writing
of the king!"
"Nay, beloved Sovereign Lady," the Chamberlain made answer, as he picked
it up, and held it before her; "this is but a memorandum made for your
Majesty's convenience, but attested under the seal of the kingdom. The
original Will is in the keeping of the Lord of the Privy Seals, awaiting
your command. It was thought that your Majesty would wish to see it
before the Council should be assembled."
She understood and bowed her head in silence, while all hope died out of
her face.
Aluisi advisedly used the ceremonious form by which he was accustomed to
address the Queen in public, hoping to hint to her of some necessary
preparation to control the meeting of the Council that could not, in any
event, be long deferred.
They lingered wistfully, seeking vainly for words that might not hurt
her; but Caterina looked at them beseechingly, with dim eyes--her lips
moving without sound.
The Lady Beata understood.
"I go now to pray the dear Christ for thee--the Man of Sorrows," she
said with inexpressible tenderness. "And later--Carinissima--I will come
again, and thou wilt rest."
So young--so sorely stricken--she knelt in the cold moonlight alone--her
hands clasped in passionate repression on her throbbing heart--"Mater
Dei!" she moaned: "Death--and then _this_!--If but it need not have been
told me! If I might but have kept the _memory_ of my happiness!"
Only the stars and the pitying angels looked down on the fierce conflict
of grief and love and disillusion with which her desolate young soul
wrestled alone through the long, midnight vigil. How should she separate
these two beautiful faiths which had been enthroned as one in the happy
depths of her guileless heart, without perilling her very trust in God!
Yet, as the sad day dawned over the hills and sea, she knew that God was
still in His Heaven, behind the clouds--while she clung as a drowning
mariner--the more desperately for her weakness--to the spar of this
faith in the wreck of her happiness, though the love to which her whole
being had moved in rhythmic content was as a lost star, glimmering
uncertainly behind the mists.
But through the desolate night-watches the Lady of the Bernardini in the
ante-chamber of the Queen had been agonizing in prayer for her until
thought was spent; and now she had moved out upon the loggia and stood
there waiting for the dawn that seemed long-deferred, in a
half-conscious wonder that there were no sorrows great enough to stay
Nature's punctual recurrences--that to-day and to-morrow there would
still be dawns and sunsets, whatever happened to the souls of men.
In the silver line that etched the dark mountain crests against the pale
monotone of the sky, single firs stood forth saliently, while dim in the
distance, vast shapes, clothed in perpetual snows, held wraith-like
watch over the smiling plains below, where life and bloom were possible.
Athwart the low, confused twittering of bird-notes which had infused the
solemn silence with a vague hint of life, strident sounds grew
dominant--a crow calling to his mate from tree to tree--a short, sharp
symphony of swallows--a cock announcing the coming of the dawn.
Then motion broke in upon the majesty; hurried rushes of flight across
the sky--beatings of wings--pulsings and ecstasies and triumphs of
bird-life--and the Day was new.
Faint twitterings in the copses deepened to melody--to canticles of
rejoicing; tints of turquoise and opal crept into the shadows and gold
into the greens: the night-dews gleamed upon the firs and grasses, while
a luminous haze dimmed the dark glint of the waters to pearly gray,
softened the grimness of the mountain-faces and wrapped them--sea and
mountains, as soul and body in a vision of mystery, a prelude to the
blaze of golden glory that was suddenly outpoured on land and sea.
Yet the heavenly splendor was but for a moment; it faded in sudden
gloom, as a bell from the inner chamber called the Lady of the
Bernardini to attend the Queen.
* * * * *
When at early morning, the Chamberlain was summoned to the Queen's
presence, the change in her beautiful face smote him to the heart: every
line had been chiselled by pain--ennobled by a high resolve--by a strong
new-born will, rendered selfless; and in her eyes a soul--tried by fire
and suddenly grown to a great height--looked forth, luminous.
Instinctively, he dropped his eyes and fell upon his knees, as if in the
presence of some heavenly spirit, his hot tears falling upon the fragile
hand she held out to him, which he clasped, unconsciously, in both his
own, with a grasp so like a vise that it would have smitten her with
sharp pain had she been capable at that moment of any physical emotion.
"Beloved Cousin and Queen!" he cried, when he could find his voice, "we
love and revere you; we would give our _lives_ to help you!"
She made an effort to speak, but no words came; she could only bow her
head to accept his homage, while his asseverations of loyalty and love
and impotent help came crowding upon his first utterance--the
immoderate outpouring of a deep, knightly soul, unused to confess
itself--the barriers of reserve once overcome by the stinging sense of
the irreparable wrong of which the revelation to this guileless,
confiding girlish nature had suddenly wrenched every memory that once
had been happiness, out of her young life--yet, in the very immensity of
her anguish, had searched to the inmost truth of her woman's fibre and,
in the fierce unfolding, had found it wholly noble.
As he knelt, still protesting, yet out of his great reverence, using no
word to wound her--the more compassionate because he might not denounce
the one who had wronged her--it was as if he were looking up to a
beloved daughter, immeasurably above him, who yet had need of his
knightly protection. He did not know that he was speaking--he did not
know what passed--only that deep in his soul he prayed to comfort her.
Slowly, with expression, the hot passion melted into a softer mood; his
grasp relaxed and she withdrew her hand, seamed and marred with red
lines where he had unconsciously tortured it; yet in her misery she was
grateful to be reached across the awful gulf of loneliness that
separated her from the world by a sense that such loyalty yet remained
to her.
She laid her hand lightly on his head, the fingers moving for a
moment--half in caress--half in benediction, while he felt her almost
imperceptible gesture dismissing this unusual audience where soul had
faced soul on the brink of a great catastrophe; and he rose to meet the
strange, luminous, unsmiling gaze of the great dark eyes which yesterday
had been almost the eyes of a child.
She pointed to the loggia, where the morning breeze came freshly laden
with the fragrance of myriad blossoms that were just opening to the
gladness of the sunrise--a sunrise over the beautiful, fabled slopes of
Cyprus--while shadows still lay on the flower-gemmed plains that
stretched between them and the sea. Ah, yes, the cool, blue, restless
sea stretched far between her island realm and the proud Venetian home
from whence she had sailed a happy girl--one little year before--to meet
her radiant visions of the future; and now, in all the splendor of the
morning, for her the light of life had died forever on the hills of
hope.
It was to this loggia that Janus had first led her when he brought her
to this summer palace of Potamia, that she might see what a vision of
beauty he had prepared for his bride--the far-reaching terraced gardens
with their brilliancy of exotics, rivalling the plumage of the peacocks
that proudly flaunted their jewelled eyes among them--the pergolas of
precious marbles from which the vines flung out a wealth of bloom,
luring the birds to a perpetual feast of song; and behind them,
spreading up to the deep groves of varied greens upon the hillsides, the
snow of countless blossoms lay whiter than the wings of the swans,
floating at leisure in silver pools among the beds of color. It was here
that Janus had spoken words she had dreamed eternally and sacredly her
own: Mother of Consolation, she must remember them no more!
She had not thought of this when the sense of suffocation had impelled
her to seek the air, to rush where it might blow over her and through
her, lift her hair about her throbbing temples and help her to forget.
Oh God--Omnipotent and Merciful--can one never forget!
A sob broke in her throat, but she made no sound, as she turned to
re-enter her audience-chamber--the sumptuous audience-chamber where she
might feel herself less a woman and more a queen.
But Aluisi, obeying her slight motion, had already passed between the
marble columns of the portico, out into the sunshine, and stood
confronting her--her friend, her cousin, and a Councillor of her realm.
The thought gave her courage, and after a moment's struggle, she grew
calm again, listening gravely to the question of State he had wished to
open to her before it should be discussed in full Council.
He spoke at first with averted gaze, feigning to be attracted by the
beauty of the morning, that he might give her time to recover herself:
but as he turned his face to hers for her reply, she put the matter
aside with an imperious gesture.
"To-day, Aluisi, I have graver matter to command my thought: the Council
shall _wait_ until I give orders for its assembling--thou, meanwhile,
using all courtesy in its delay and the enforcement of--of my
command--the Queen's command--so only that it be enforced. These methods
are new to me," she added, with a sudden softened appeal in her tone;
"thou wilt know the way to compass it--for my sake--for it must be
done."
"It shall be done," he assented uncompromisingly; but in surprise,
knowing only too well the imperious methods of the Council appointed to
assist her in her government and the temper of the men who composed that
body--for Janus had not been great in his knowledge of men; and possibly
the only one of the seven who had been strictly devoted to the King, had
died shortly after his appointment, and the place had been filled with
one less favorable to the present rule of Cyprus. Fabrici was known to
be in sympathy with Naples; Rizzo, Chief of Council, strong,
domineering, unscrupulous, was perhaps the creature of Ferdinand, King
of Naples. "It shall be done," he said again, having vowed to help her.
"For, until I have had speech with the holiest man among the priests
that may be found in all this kingdom of Cyprus," she said with a
decision that amazed him, "I will treat of no matter of State, however
urgent. Nay, Aluisi--my cousin"--as she noted his start of surprise--"to
thee alone--who must be my counsellor in days of desolation--pray Heaven
more dark than thou shalt ever dream of--I will confide that out of this
night of vigil hath come this resolution which I dare not break. Seek
thou the man."
He had already turned to fulfil her quest which might be long in the
doing--and these impatient Councillors would be hard to hold; yet he had
no thought of parleying with this girl-queen, so suddenly grown to a
full stature.
But her voice, even and low, arrested him. "He must be Greek in birth,"
she said, "and of the Greek Church, which my people love. But above
all--_he must be a man to trust_."
He turned when he had crossed the great audience-chamber, under the
entrance colonnade of huge porphyry columns, wrought with barbaric
symbols of earlier dynasties and guarded by colossal Assyrian bulls--she
seemed so young and tender to leave, even for a day, in those
surroundings unguarded, at the mercy of that Council of Seven whom he
had reason to distrust--in her kingdom seamed with dissensions of which
she had, as yet, small comprehension; of which, perhaps, she did not
even dream--with her shattered happiness behind her and loneliness
before, and this great responsibility pressing its leaden weight upon
her fair young head.
He longed to throw her a last reassuring glance--to leave with her the
absolute faith that with every power of his being he would uphold and
steady her in the rough and desolate way.
For since he came from Venice he had not ceased his vigilant study of
the complications of Cyprus, that when her need came he might be ready.
He never forgot the vision of the girl-queen in her sweeping widow's
robes, across the great space between them, in the sunshine of the
loggia--her hand extended as if to hasten or to bless him--a wonderful,
unearthly light and strength in her face; and, for one moment as she met
his gaze and understood the full depth of his devotion, the ghost of a
smile--as if it had been granted him to bring her in this hour of
martyrdom one little ray of human comfort.