With the removal of the Court to Nikosia days of peace and sunshine had
at last dawned for the distracted island kingdom--whether compassed by
the wisdom of the astute and vigilant counsellors who sat close under
the ear of the youthful Queen--by the superior force of the Venetian
galleys, or by the winning charm of the Queen herself. The echoes of
conspiracy had been stilled and the cities of Cyprus were taking new
pride in their commerce, while they were growing richer in measures of
philanthropy and education and that blossoming of arts and culture which
only may adorn a court at leisure from petty wars and intrigues.
Early in these days of quiet Caterina had turned once more to her cousin
the Bernardini, bidding him ask some favor at her hand--"For verily I
owe thee more than I may repay."
"There could be never a debt between us, my cousin," he answered
smiling: then with the ceremonious bow of a courtier, he added, with a
singular mixture of gravity and playfulness: "I would remind your
Majesty of a function of this Court which it hath never pleased my fair
cousin to exercise. There is one among the maids of honor--most rare and
noble--bounden by special vows of fealty, as a _Dama di Maridaggio_, to
marry at the command of her Sovereign."
He stood before her quite unabashed and smiling, while she scanned him
in surprise.
"Margherita de Iblin?" she questioned, half unbelieving.
"Margherita!" he answered, radiantly; "there is no other."
"And how--if when I name the other two which custom doth demand for this
ceremonial, she shall find a knight more to her liking?" Caterina asked
teasingly.
"Name one; and name him thrice," he answered boldly.
"Little I dreamed thee, Aluisi, so poor a knight that thou shouldst lack
the courage to plead thine own cause," she exclaimed in amusement. "And
of what avail a gift that is not free?"
He joined frankly in her laugh.
"Nay," he said; "the case is quite otherwise. For she will not say me
nay, fair Cousin, because--in sooth some day she shall tell me why; and
I count myself too leal a knight to tell it--if I knew--before she shall
bid me speak. For the cause hath been pleaded and _not_ rejected; and
the gift hath been given, but _not_ confessed; which, were it not thus,
I should seek no aid--having no mind to steal, were it even the heart of
a maid. But now it is rather wit than 'courage' that I lack, to outwit
my lady--may those forgive me who hold her favor!"
"I will right heartily forgive thee, so but thou win it," Caterina
assured him. "Yet if she hath not said thee nay--what lackest thou of
favor?"
He was suddenly grave. "She will not say me '_yea_,'" he answered her,
"lest the speaking of the word which she foldeth close in her heart
until she giveth her rare self leave to utter it, should make her
somewhat less to her Sovereign Lady--who, she hath most solemnly assured
me--hath need of us both--and _thus_--with no bond between her two loyal
servitors but their loyalty to their Queen."
"Shall mine be less because of their happiness?" Caterina questioned
indignantly. "Nay, but much less--_much_ less, without it!--Where is the
Dama Margherita?"
"Nay, fair Cousin," he protested, "let discretion rule the command, I
beseech you. For she herself is more proud than any Queen and of a
temper to which surrender cometh not easily; and the wooing hath been
long. Yet the truth of her deep eyes betrayeth her,--and so I trust my
happiness in your gracious hands."
But Caterina would not rest until she had found the occasion for speech:
and so soon as she chanced to be alone with Dama Margherita, she
announced, without preamble, that she would presently command a right
royal festival to please the nobles but lately come to court, with
jousts of song and floral games, "and I myself will give the prize, and
thou--Cara Margherita, being my faithful _Dama di Maridaggio_, shall be
the Queen thereof."
But the Margherita drew herself haughtily away from the Queen's
outstretched hand.
"I do not understand," she said, in a tone that was half resentful. "I
am ever at your Majesty's command for loyalty and service: but this
custom displeaseth me--I pray your Majesty, let it be dismissed."
"Nay, Margherita, it is my right;" the Queen persisted. "I would have
thee choose one of three noble knights whom I will present to thee."
"Three!" she echoed with a sensation of relief: then, after all, her
secret had not been guessed: it was truly some freak of the Queen's, and
she turned more willingly to listen.
"The first is of rare nobility, whom I fain would honor in bestowing
upon him the hand of one so dear--because he hath spent himself for me,
and hath held his life little when it might serve me."
Margherita half opened her lips to speak, then closed them resolutely
and held silence--a faint flush growing in her cheek.
"The next is one of a most ancient house, of vast estates, it hath been
told me, which he himself nameth not, save for some generous use when
there is need: of whom all men speak well, because of a certain strength
he hath; but women rarely, for the scorn he showeth for heartless
trifling. If he should love a woman, she need not fear to trust him."
"And if he loveth not though he were a prince among men," Margherita
answered with an effort at playful speech, "it were folly to trust his
vows."
"Truly it were folly," the Queen replied, growing suddenly pensive, "and
it were not easy to know wisdom from folly in such a matter, perchance.
Let us speak no more of it--though I had a third to bring before thee."
"Then," said Margherita with unexpected docility, "an' it please your
Majesty I will listen."
"Thou art so gracious that I scarce do know thee!" the Queen retorted
playfully, "thou who art wont to hold me with a wholesome fear! But for
the third--now I bethink me--it were scarce worth the telling, since it
was but a word that he left with me--no more--that I would that thou
hadst seen him utter it, a simple vow--yet I know that none shall move
him from it! Listen, Margherita: '_For me there is none other._'"
"Said he no more, when he asked so much?" Dama Margherita questioned
with a desperate attempt to defer the moment of yielding.
Caterina turned and looked at her seriously.
"If he hath not the gift, already," she said, "it is much to ask. Yet,
if he holdeth it, by no constraint--but _because it is for him alone and
may not be withheld_--however one may struggle,--need one ask further
assurance of happiness? Choose thou from these, my Margherita. They are
good knights."
"All three--or one?" Margherita asked, with deepening color and shining
eyes that were her confession and surrender. "These three are one--my
Lady giveth me no choice."
"How one?" the Queen answered promptly, willing to grant her a little
more time, for she saw that it was not easy for this proud maid to
yield. "For one is lofty and masterful, and of a great prowess--so that
men fear him. And one is knightly and worshipful, with a trick of speech
when it pleaseth him, so that a woman might love him if he plead with
her for favor. And one--nay, of him we will speak no more. For he hath a
will that may not be denied when he hath said, '_For me_ there is none
other.'"
"My beloved Lady doth trifle with me," Margherita exclaimed in
confusion. "She will not lay this command upon me!"
"My Margherita--most solemnly I bid thee choose that which shall bring
thee happiness. For thy lover hath confessed himself to me."
"Is it happiness to love,--or is it pain?" the girl questioned very low.
"If sometimes it may be pain," the young Queen answered, a shadow
crossing her brow; "yet even then, methinks, one would not have missed
it--so only one hath held one's own heart true: for it discovereth
depths and heights one might not know without it, and bringeth dreams
that make one's soul the fairer. But for thee, _cara_ Margherita--it
shall be all happiness--for thy knight is true and noble like thyself;
and my heart is glad that I may give thee to him."
"Since I have not chosen him--and there are three!" Margherita
interposed faintly--"but if it is of your Majesty's command----?"
"Tell me but this one thing--dost love him, Margherita?"
"If there must be confession, should not the high-priest of this
sacrament be first to hear it?" the proud maid whispered, as she knelt
and kissed her Lady's hand with a sudden grace: but the Queen knew that
she might neither tease nor trifle more.
"My Margherita," she said, folding her closely; "I could dream no
sweeter dream than to know my two very dearest ones worthy of each other
and happy together."
So it was not long before the Court of Nikosia was gladdened with a
festival of old-time splendor, lasting for many days--with tournaments
of knights and jousts of song, and recitals of quaint Cyprian legends
and classic story, and all that their most punctilious custom might
decree for a noble's marriage feast in the days of the _cinque cento_.
* * * * *
But as time slipped by in apparent tranquillity and growing prosperity,
with constant evidences of judicious thought bestowed by the Queen upon
the well-being of her subjects--with the coming and going of artists and
men of letters to her court, and the resuming of all those ancient
Cyprian customs that might minister to the content of the nobles--whom
it was ever most needful to satisfy with a sufficient show of
gaiety--there had nevertheless been an imperceptibly increasing
tightening of the threads of government which stretched far across the
waters to Venice's own blue Adriatic, into the very Council-Chambers of
the Palazzo San Marco.
Even the moneys of Cyprus were flowing somewhat overfreely into the
coffers of the Venetian Provveditori who kept vigilant watch over the
island kingdom--which was, in truth, no longer anything but a Venetian
province, except in name. Yet Caterina, while she chafed at many
hampering restrictions which she was powerless to overcome, loved her
people and her work with the strength of desperation, and struggled
bravely on.
It was a relief that the petty warfare of conflicting claimants without
and within her kingdom had ceased; even the importunity from aspiring
suitors came no more--since the same cold answer was ever ready for all,
alike: and to Caterina this also was a relief. For, although of her own
will she could have given but one reply, she had bitterly resented the
imperative command of the Signoria forbidding her second marriage, as an
indignity assuring her that she was not free--and each fresh
importunity was a reminder of her bondage.
If the Cyprian members of the Council of the Realm also saw that the
meshes of Venice were steadily gathering more closely about them, they
had no longer power of resistance against that craftiness of the
Republic which had known how to divert the moneys that should have gone
to the making of a Cyprian Marine, while tickling their love of splendor
with some outward show--yet had kept the island kingdom from
appreciating this great need, by the readiness with which full-manned
Venetian galleys protected the Cyprian coasts whenever they were
threatened with devastation.
More than one letter of resistance and impotent pleading in Caterina's
own hand, had gone from this Daughter of the Republic to the Doge
himself, and passed from the Serenissimo into the secret archives of San
Marco; but the very fact of the appeal was an acknowledgment of Venetian
right, and the evils steadily increased. While Caterina tried to forget
that the clasp of a velvet paw may fatally crush, when the force of an
angry lion is behind it: or--if she remembered it too cruelly in the
hours of her desolate midnight vigils, what could she do but ignore the
insult, with a woman's power of endurance, that she might defer the day
that should separate her from her work and her people with whom her last
dim hopes of happiness were inextricably bound up: for to them she knew
that she was still the Mother Queen--"Nostra Madonna," and the dear
title was a cure for much heart-anguish.
More than once the good Father Johannes--his hair and beard now falling
in thin gray locks about his throat and breast, but the spirit within
him still gleaming fiercely from his deep eyes--had come with painful
steps down the long way from his distant Troodos to help and comfort
her.
"Daughter," he said, "for thy brave wrestling I absolve thee from thy
vow. Christ and the Holy Mother are merciful. They ask no more than man
may do. If thou hast not the strength----"
"Father, without my work I have naught to live for. I have not the
strength to leave it."
"Then God help thee! and the prayers of all the pilgrims to the
Troodista help thee! And of all who have tasted of thy bounty; and of
all who have known thy care!"
"Unless, my Father," she interrupted painfully, "there should be one who
might better hold this trust, to whom I may yield it? If Carlotta----"
"Is she not like her Mother, the Paleologue?" the Lampadisti answered
angrily. "Hath she not plotted murder and treachery to compass her ends?
Aye--even a fratricide--because forsooth of the crime of the grace that
her brother possessed? Is there a record of good deeds, that the people
should wish her back?--Did _she_ strive to uphold the laws, or to know
them?--To have her people taught and comforted?"--his eyes blazed.
"Thou dost verily comfort me, my Father."
"For that I am sent. The Holy Relic on the altar of the Troodista seemed
to point me hither, with every Sacred Thorn. I could pray no prayers but
for thee; I could hearken to no other tales of woe. My feet turned ever
thither without my will: and thus I knew that thou hadst need of me!"
But once when he came, and she knew not that it was the last time, she
said:
"I have somewhat to ask of thee, my Father."
"Say on."
"That thou wilt receive me into the Holy Sisterhood of St. Francis--as a
lay sister; that if I find the world more weary than I can bear, I may
be sure of a retreat which thou my faithful friend and spiritual Father
will have prepared for me. So that the act of my admission may be known
only to thee and me and the directors of the Chapter of St. Francis, and
to the Holy Sisterhood, of which I shall be one--yet living in the
world, so long as my duty shall call me."
"Thou hast deserved it by thy constancy," he said. "And may the Holy
Madonna be gracious to thee: and our blessed St. Francis sing to thy
sorrowing soul sweet measures of content, by the voices of 'his
brothers, the birds of the air.'"
It was evening, and the Queen had bidden him to her summer terrace over
the gardens, where in the luxuriant shrubberies below them the birds
were vying with each other in the loud-voiced evening orisons for which
the brief flame of the Cyprian sunset was ever a signal.
"The years will make of thee a poet, my Father," Caterina said, smiling
at the turn of phrase so unusual from his lips.
"It is not the years but thou, my Daughter, who hast taught me that
beauty may be holy and lift the soul."