The house of Phranza was rather a series of houses built about a
square court, in which were parterres of rarest plants, divided from
each other by walks of variegated marble, and moistened by the spray
of fountains.
Morsinia's palanquin was let down just within the gateway. A young
woman assisted her to alight, and conducted her to apartments
elegantly furnished with all that could please a woman's eye, though
she were the reigning beauty of a court, instead of one brought up as
a peasant in a distant province, and largely ignorant of the arts of
the toilet. She was bewildered with the strangeness of her
surroundings, and sat down speechless upon the cushion to gaze about
her. Was she herself? It required the remembrance that Constantine was
somewhere near her to enable her to realize her own identity, and that
she had not been changed by some fairy's wand into a real princess.
"Will my lady rest?" said the attendant, in softest Greek.
Morsinia was familiar with this language, which was used more or less
everywhere in Servia and Albania; but she had never heard it spoken
with such sweetness. The words would have been restful to hear, though
she had not understood their meaning. Without hesitation she resigned
herself to the hands of the servant, who relieved her of her outer
apparel. Another maiden brought a tray of delicate wafers of wheat,
and flasks of light wine, with figs and dates. A curtain in the wall,
being drawn, exposed the bath; a great basin of mottled marble, and a
little fountain scattering a spray scented with roses.
Morsinia began to fear that she had been mistaken for some great lady,
whose wardrobe was expected to be brought in massive chests, and whose
personal ornaments would rival the toilet treasures of the Queen of
Sheba. There entered opportunely several tire-women, laden with silks
and linens, laces and shawls, every portion of female attire, in every
variety of color and shape--from the strong buskin to the gauze veil
so light that it will hide from the eye less than it reveals to the
imagination.
The guest was about to question her attendants, when one gave her a
note, hastily written by Constantine, and simply saying--
"Be surprised at nothing." Phranza had expressed to Constantine the
deep interest of the emperor in the career of Scanderbeg, and his
plans for Morsinia.
"Scanderbeg," said he, "is the one hero of our degenerate age; the
only arm not beaten nerveless by the blows of the Turk. I have asked
nothing concerning yourself, my young man; nor need I know more than
that such a chieftain is interested in you and your charge. Your great
captain informs me (reading from a letter), that any service we may
render you here will be counted as service to Albania; and that any
favor we may bestow upon the lady will be as if shown to his own
child. Is she of any kin to him?"
"I may not speak of that," replied the youth, "except to tell that her
blood is noble, and that General Castriot has made her safety his
care. An Albanian needs but to know that this is the will of our
loving and wise chieftain, to defend Morsinia with his life."
"You speak her name with familiarity," said Phranza.
"It is the custom of our people," replied Constantine, coloring. "The
trials of our country have thrown nobles and peasants into more
intimate relations than would perhaps be allowed in a settled
condition. This, too, may have influenced General Castriot in sending
her here, where her life may be more suitable to her gentle blood."
"It is enough!" exclaimed Phranza. "If our distance from Albania, and
our own pressing difficulties and dangers do not allow us to send aid
to your hero, we can show him our respect and gratitude by treating
her, whom he would have as his child, as if she were our own. And now
for yourself--well! you shall have what, if I mistake you not, your
discreet mind and lusty muscles most crave--an opportunity 'to win
your spurs,' as the western knights would say. Events are thickening
into a crash, the out-come of which no one can foresee, except that
the Moslem or the Christian shall hold all from the Euxine to the
Adriatic. This double empire cannot long exist. Scanderbeg's arms
alone are keeping the Sultan from trying again the strength of our
walls. A disaster there; an assault here! You serve the one cause
whether here or there."
"I give my fealty to the emperor as I would to my general," replied
the young man warmly.
Constantine found himself arrayed before night in the costume of a
subaltern officer of the imperial guard, and assigned to quarters at
the barracks in the section of the city near to the house of the
chamberlain. His brief training under the eye of Castriot, and his
hazardous service, had developed his great natural talent for
soldiership into marvellous acquirements for one of his years. With
the foils, in the saddle, in mastery of tactics, in engineering
ability displayed at the walls--which were being constantly
strengthened--he soon took rank with the most promising. By courtesy
of the chamberlain he was allowed the freest communication with
Morsinia, and was often the guest of her host; especially upon
excursions of pleasure up the Golden Horn to the "Sweet Waters," along
the western shore of the Bosphorus, to the Princess Island, and such
other spots on the sea of Marmora as were uninfested by piratical
Turks.
Morsinia became the favorite not only of the wife of Phranza, but of
the ladies of the court, and the object of especial devotion on the
part of the nobles and officers of the emperor's suite.
But it would have required more saintliness of female disposition than
was ever found in the court of a Byzantine emperor, to have smothered
the fires of jealousy, when, at a banquet given at the palace,
Morsinia was placed at the emperor's right hand. It might not be just
to Phranza to say that to his suggestion was due the praise of
Morsinia's beauty and queenly bearing, which the emperor overheard
from many of the courtiers' lips. Perhaps the charms of her person
forced this spontaneous commendation from them: as it was asserted by
some of the more elderly of the ladies--whom long study had made
proficient in the art of reading kings' hearts from their faces, that
the monarch found an Esther in the Albanian.
The reigning beauty at the court of Constantine Palælogus at this time
was the daughter of a Genoese admiral. Though not reputed for
amiability, she won the friendship of Morsinia by many delicate
attentions. Gifts of articles of dress, ornaments and such souvenirs
as only one woman can select for another, seemed to mark her
increasing attachment. A box of ebony, richly inlaid with mother of
pearl, and filled with delicious confections, was one day the offering
upon the shrine of her sisterly regard. The wife of Phranza, in whose
presence the box was opened, on learning the name of the donor,
besought Morsinia not to taste the contents; and giving a candied fig
to a pet ape, the brute sickened and died before the night.
An event contributed to the rumors which associated the name of the
fair Albanian with the special favors of the emperor. An embassage
from the Doge of Venice had brightened the harbor with their galleys.
A gondola sheathed in silver, floated upon the waters of the Golden
Horn, like a white swan, and was moored at the foot of the palace
garden--the gift of the Doge. Another, its counterpart, was in the
harbor of Venice--the possession of the daughter of the Doge; but
waiting to join its companion, if the imperial heart could be
persuaded to accept with it the person of its princely owner. Better
than the ideal marriage of Venice with the sea--the ceremony of which
was annually observed--would be the marriage of the two seas, the
Adriatic and the Ægean; and the reunion of their families of confluent
waters under the double banner of St. Mark and Byzantium. But the
Grand Duke Lucas Notaris, who was also grand admiral of the empire,
declared openly that he would sooner hold alliance with the Turk than
with a power representing that schismatic Latin Church. The hereditary
nobles protested against such a menace to social order as, in their
estimate, a recognition of a republic like Venice would be. But it was
believed that more potent in its influence over the emperor than these
outcries, was the whisper of Phranza that the silver gondola of Venice
was fairer than its possessor; and that queenly beauty awaited
elsewhere the imperial embrace.
No habitué of the court knew less of this gossip than Morsinia
herself; nor did she suspect any unusual attention paid her by the
emperor to be other than an expression of regard for Castriot, whose
ward she was known to be. Or if, when they were alone, his manner
betrayed a fondness, she attributed it to his natural kindliness of
disposition, or to that desire for recreation which persons in middle
life, burdened with cares, find in the society of the young and
beautiful; for no purpose of modesty could hide from Morsinia the
knowledge which her mirror revealed. She had, too, the highest respect
for the piety of the emperor; the deepest sympathy with him in his
distress for the evils which were swarming about his realm; and a true
admiration for the courage of heart with which he bore up against
them. It was therefore with a commingling of religious, patriotic,
and personal interest that she gave herself up to his entertainment
whenever he sought her society. That she might understand him the
better, and be able to converse with him, she learned from Phranza
much of the history of recent movements, both without and within the
empire. So expert had she become in these matters that the chamberlain
playfully called her his prime minister.