XIII
"Madre Mia!" he said with deep tenderness, "I think it is not possibleto hold the knowledge from her longer. It must be told to-night."
They were in the loggia overlooking the splendid stretch of terracedgardens, now flooded with moonlight; they had been standing there, quitesilent, for a long time, each feeling that there was something to bespoken and suffered--each praying to defer the moment.
"Oh, Aluisi--no!"
Her tone was an entreaty: but he only put out his hand and laid ittenderly upon hers: the beautiful, tapering fingers trembled under histouch, then slowly quieted, for there was a rare sympathy between them.
"I have done everything," he continued in a low voice, without lookingat her, "but they will not wait--matters of State, they say, to bepassed upon--a Queen must give her signature when it is needed."
He came closer, suddenly turning upon her a gaze which compelled herstartled comprehension. "They would be quite willing to pass the measure_without_ her signature," he added, in a still lower tone. "It has cometo that--we must think of her rights and protect her _against herCouncillors_!"
"She has had so much to bear, poor child--so young--and her heart isbroken already with sorrow for her husband. For she had faith in him.And now!--Have they no feeling for her?"
"Madre, carissima, thou knowest not Rizzo; he is the most powerful amongthem, and the most ill-disposed. 'Let her take the Prince of Naples,' hehath said openly before the Councillors, 'and give us a man to reignover us.'"
"And Janus but two weeks dead!" The Lady Beata gave an involuntary cryof horror. "But Fabrici, the Archbishop?" she asked after a moment, "mayhe not influence them to be more gentle with her--having a brother inthe Council?"
Aluisi shook his head sorrowfully. "Nay, Mother--I know not which isworse. Venice, at his election, would have prevented it, but could not,because he represented this intriguing power of Naples which hath notceased from effort to have its will of Cyprus, since the betrothal ofCaterina--which also it sought to overthrow."
"How knowest thou?"
He laid his finger on his lips--"If we were yet in Venice, I might notanswer thee; but here--and it is for me and thee alone--it was I uponwhom the Signoria laid the task of drawing up their monitory letter toJanus to hold him to his contract."
"Oh, if thou hadst not done it! I would rather thou hadst not writtenit!" she said with a low moan.
"Aye--Mother: and I--even then I knew that it must be happier for thechild if that contract might be broken. Though if I had dreamed of_this_ I could not have doomed one of our Casa Cornaro to suchsuffering and dishonor. But thou knowest the pride of Venice: if not_my_ hand, another's would have written it: and I then--we should nothave been here to shield her."
"But the Archbishop Fabrici cannot hold malice against Caterina. He hathall the church of Cyprus in his command; he _must_ be friendly to theQueen."
But Aluisi's face gave her no hope, as she turned to him.
"Fabrici, for another cause, holdeth the queen in deep disfavor," hesaid, "for that he, having been sent by Janus on some embassy of marriagefor the child Zarla, came into the Chamber of Counts of the Kingdom--notmany days since--and with much grossness of speech would have discussedthe matter at length in that presence; which we, of her household--shebeing in the first grief of her young widowhood--prevented, throughmembers of the Queen's Council, better disposed."
"It was well, Aluisi: it seemeth even now too soon--too cruel--to addthis shadow to her grief: and but for thee, she must have known thereofthat day. For she seeketh already to take up the burden of the State andquestioneth daily of the Secretary of the King of that which passeth inthe Council. 'That I may rule my people,' she sayeth sadly, 'and thosewho loved the King will help me!' With what a tender grace she sayeth'_my people_!'"
"Madre mia, thou who lovest her and art so wise--shall I leave thisparchment with thee? Thou best canst spare her in what must be told. Ihave had made this copy of certain clauses of the Will of Janus, whichmay not longer wait official reading before the Council in the Chamberof the Counts and in presence of the Queen. Thinkest thou not it wouldbe too hard for her to learn first of its provisions before them all?"
"Thou art right, Aluisi--always right. But her faith in him is deep; howshall I make her believe it?"
"I know not," he answered with a groan, and crushing the parchment inhis hand. Then he smoothed it out remorsefully and gave it to her. "Itis a faithful copy; there is no other argument. Thou wilt go to hernow--for it _must_ be."
With bowed head he led her to the door of the Queen's ante-chamber. "Iam here," he said, "if need should be."
She still hesitated. "It may be long, for I know not how to tell her."
"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 dothink the Council would willingly have her away."
In the ante-chamber scattered groups of court-ladies in deepestmourning, were talking in low tones. They all rose as the Lady Beataentered: but she, with only an inclination of her head passed on hastilyinto 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 softlights of perfumed oils, burning low in lamps of ivory, made onlymoonlight within the chamber. She held the miniature of Janus pressedagainst her cheek, and as the Lady Beata came towards her she tried towelcome her with a quivering smile.
"I sent them all away, Zia mia: sometimes it seems less hard to bearwhen I am quite alone."
The Lady Beata bent over her, stroking her hair caressingly, strivingfor courage to break the silence.
"Caterina mia," she said at last, "it is needful to give some thought tomatters of government--the Council will not wait. Hast thou thestrength?"
"I _must_ have strength," she answered with instant resolution, risingand laying aside the miniature with a lingering look. "Wilt thou callAluisi? He ever maketh me understand. It is so new to me," she pleadedfeebly, 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 toher--"it is the Will of the late King, Aluisi hath bidden me give itthee."
"There is no need," Caterina answered listlessly, as the Lady Beataopened 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 willnot longer wait; it will be read before the Counts of the Chamber, andthey would have the Queen take oath of fealty to Cyprus."
"I shall have the strength when to-morrow cometh," Caterina answeredwearily, and making a motion to return the parchment.
"There are other clauses; Aluisi thought it might be better to readthem 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'sindecision, dropped her eyes upon the page and read the short clausesthrough; then once more--as if she did not understand--then again, ascarlet flush growing as she read.
The parchment contained but three short clauses: King Janus left hiskingdom to his wife Caterina, who was to reign, with their child, ifthere 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 shoulddescend to each of the three other children of Janus, in the ordernamed. The unwedded mother of these children was not mentioned andCaterina 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, instantlyrepressed.
The Lady Beata put her arm around her to steady her; but Caterina drewherself away, standing upright.
"Call back the Chamberlain!" she cried, imperiously; and stoodwaiting
--panting--until he entered the room.
Then she drew up her slight figure in defiance, her eyes flashing in herwhite, white face--her voice ringing scorn as she pointed to thedocument 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 sayno 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 loveand sorrow and comprehension that the fire in her eyes died in anguish.
A quiver shot through her, but she struggled to stand, motioning themaway again when they would have helped her--she must drink this cup ofbitterness alone. "How should I believe it?" she repeated brokenly,still studying their faces.--"How _should_ I believe it--ye are notfaithless to him--to me----?"
There was no need to answer her: again they looked their unspeakablecompassion.
But as Caterina's eyes rested upon the parchment once more, a suddenhope 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 writingof the king!"
"Nay, beloved Sovereign Lady," the Chamberlain made answer, as he pickedit up, and held it before her; "this is but a memorandum made for yourMajesty's convenience, but attested under the seal of the kingdom. Theoriginal Will is in the keeping of the Lord of the Privy Seals, awaitingyour command. It was thought that your Majesty would wish to see itbefore the Council should be assembled."
She understood and bowed her head in silence, while all hope died out ofher face.
Aluisi advisedly used the ceremonious form by which he was accustomed toaddress the Queen in public, hoping to hint to her of some necessarypreparation to control the meeting of the Council that could not, in anyevent, be long deferred.
They lingered wistfully, seeking vainly for words that might not hurther; but Caterina looked at them beseechingly, with dim eyes--her lipsmoving without sound.
The Lady Beata understood.
"I go now to pray the dear Christ for thee--the Man of Sorrows," shesaid with inexpressible tenderness. "And later--Carinissima--I will comeagain, and thou wilt rest."
So young--so sorely stricken--she knelt in the cold moonlight alone--herhands clasped in passionate repression on her throbbing heart--"MaterDei!" she moaned: "Death--and then _this_!--If but it need not have beentold me! If I might but have kept the _memory_ of my happiness!"
Only the stars and the pitying angels looked down on the fierce conflictof grief and love and disillusion with which her desolate young soulwrestled alone through the long, midnight vigil. How should she separatethese two beautiful faiths which had been enthroned as one in the happydepths 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 wasstill in His Heaven, behind the clouds--while she clung as a drowningmariner--the more desperately for her weakness--to the spar of thisfaith in the wreck of her happiness, though the love to which her wholebeing had moved in rhythmic content was as a lost star, glimmeringuncertainly behind the mists.
But through the desolate night-watches the Lady of the Bernardini in theante-chamber of the Queen had been agonizing in prayer for her untilthought was spent; and now she had moved out upon the loggia and stoodthere waiting for the dawn that seemed long-deferred, in ahalf-conscious wonder that there were no sorrows great enough to stayNature's punctual recurrences--that to-day and to-morrow there wouldstill be dawns and sunsets, whatever happened to the souls of men.
In the silver line that etched the dark mountain crests against the palemonotone of the sky, single firs stood forth saliently, while dim in thedistance, vast shapes, clothed in perpetual snows, held wraith-likewatch over the smiling plains below, where life and bloom were possible.
Athwart the low, confused twittering of bird-notes which had infused thesolemn silence with a vague hint of life, strident sounds grewdominant--a crow calling to his mate from tree to tree--a short, sharpsymphony of swallows--a cock announcing the coming of the dawn.
Then motion broke in upon the majesty; hurried rushes of flight acrossthe sky--beatings of wings--pulsings and ecstasies and triumphs ofbird-life--and the Day was new.
Faint twitterings in the copses deepened to melody--to canticles ofrejoicing; tints of turquoise and opal crept into the shadows and goldinto the greens: the night-dews gleamed upon the firs and grasses, whilea luminous haze dimmed the dark glint of the waters to pearly gray,softened the grimness of the mountain-faces and wrapped them--sea andmountains, as soul and body in a vision of mystery, a prelude to theblaze of golden glory that was suddenly outpoured on land and sea.
Yet the heavenly splendor was but for a moment; it faded in suddengloom, as a bell from the inner chamber called the Lady of theBernardini to attend the Queen.
* * * * *
When at early morning, the Chamberlain was summoned to the Queen'spresence, the change in her beautiful face smote him to the heart: everyline had been chiselled by pain--ennobled by a high resolve--by a strongnew-born will, rendered selfless; and in her eyes a soul--tried by fireand suddenly grown to a great height--looked forth, luminous.
Instinctively, he dropped his eyes and fell upon his knees, as if in thepresence of some heavenly spirit, his hot tears falling upon the fragilehand she held out to him, which he clasped, unconsciously, in both hisown, with a grasp so like a vise that it would have smitten her withsharp pain had she been capable at that moment of any physical emotion.
"Beloved Cousin and Queen!" he cried, when he could find his voice, "welove 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 herhead to accept his homage, while his asseverations of loyalty and loveand impotent help came crowding upon his first utterance--theimmoderate outpouring of a deep, knightly soul, unused to confessitself--the barriers of reserve once overcome by the stinging sense ofthe irreparable wrong of which the revelation to this guileless,confiding girlish nature had suddenly wrenched every memory that oncehad been happiness, out of her young life--yet, in the very immensity ofher 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 noword to wound her--the more compassionate because he might not denouncethe one who had wronged her--it was as if he were looking up to abeloved daughter, immeasurably above him, who yet had need of hisknightly protection. He did not know that he was speaking--he did notknow what passed--only that deep in his soul he prayed to comfort her.
Slowly, with expression, the hot passion melted into a softer mood; hisgrasp relaxed and she withdrew her hand, seamed and marred with redlines where he had unconsciously tortured it; yet in her misery she wasgrateful to be reached across the awful gulf of loneliness thatseparated her from the world by a sense that such loyalty yet remainedto her.
She laid her hand lightly on his head, the fingers moving for amoment--half in caress--half in benediction, while he felt her almostimperceptible gesture dismissing this unusual audience where soul hadfaced soul on the brink of a great catastrophe; and he rose to meet thestrange, luminous, unsmiling gaze of the great dark eyes which yesterdayhad been almost the eyes of a child.
She pointed to the loggia, where the morning breeze came freshly ladenwith the fragrance of myriad blossoms that were just opening to thegladness of the sunrise--a sunrise over the beautiful, fabled slopes ofCyprus--while shadows still lay on the flower-gemmed plains thatstretched between them and the sea. Ah, yes, the cool, blue, restlesssea stretched far between her island realm and the proud Venetian homefrom whence she had sailed a happy girl--one little year before--to meether radiant visions of the future; and now, in all the splendor of themorning, for her
the light of life had died forever on the hills ofhope.
It was to this loggia that Janus had first led her when he brought herto this summer palace of Potamia, that she might see what a vision ofbeauty he had prepared for his bride--the far-reaching terraced gardenswith their brilliancy of exotics, rivalling the plumage of the peacocksthat proudly flaunted their jewelled eyes among them--the pergolas ofprecious 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, thesnow of countless blossoms lay whiter than the wings of the swans,floating at leisure in silver pools among the beds of color. It was herethat Janus had spoken words she had dreamed eternally and sacredly herown: Mother of Consolation, she must remember them no more!
She had not thought of this when the sense of suffocation had impelledher to seek the air, to rush where it might blow over her and throughher, 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 tore-enter her audience-chamber--the sumptuous audience-chamber where shemight feel herself less a woman and more a queen.
But Aluisi, obeying her slight motion, had already passed between themarble columns of the portico, out into the sunshine, and stoodconfronting her--her friend, her cousin, and a Councillor of her realm.
The thought gave her courage, and after a moment's struggle, she grewcalm again, listening gravely to the question of State he had wished toopen to her before it should be discussed in full Council.
He spoke at first with averted gaze, feigning to be attracted by thebeauty 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 matteraside with an imperious gesture.
"To-day, Aluisi, I have graver matter to command my thought: the Councilshall _wait_ until I give orders for its assembling--thou, meanwhile,using all courtesy in its delay and the enforcement of--of mycommand--the Queen's command--so only that it be enforced. These methodsare 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 bedone."
"It shall be done," he assented uncompromisingly; but in surprise,knowing only too well the imperious methods of the Council appointed toassist her in her government and the temper of the men who composed thatbody--for Janus had not been great in his knowledge of men; and possiblythe only one of the seven who had been strictly devoted to the King, haddied shortly after his appointment, and the place had been filled withone less favorable to the present rule of Cyprus. Fabrici was known tobe in sympathy with Naples; Rizzo, Chief of Council, strong,domineering, unscrupulous, was perhaps the creature of Ferdinand, Kingof 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 prieststhat may be found in all this kingdom of Cyprus," she said with adecision that amazed him, "I will treat of no matter of State, howeverurgent. Nay, Aluisi--my cousin"--as she noted his start of surprise--"tothee alone--who must be my counsellor in days of desolation--pray Heavenmore dark than thou shalt ever dream of--I will confide that out of thisnight of vigil hath come this resolution which I dare not break. Seekthou the man."
He had already turned to fulfil her quest which might be long in thedoing--and these impatient Councillors would be hard to hold; yet he hadno thought of parleying with this girl-queen, so suddenly grown to afull 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 aboveall--_he must be a man to trust_."
He turned when he had crossed the great audience-chamber, under theentrance colonnade of huge porphyry columns, wrought with barbaricsymbols of earlier dynasties and guarded by colossal Assyrian bulls--sheseemed so young and tender to leave, even for a day, in thosesurroundings unguarded, at the mercy of that Council of Seven whom hehad reason to distrust--in her kingdom seamed with dissensions of whichshe had, as yet, small comprehension; of which, perhaps, she did noteven dream--with her shattered happiness behind her and lonelinessbefore, and this great responsibility pressing its leaden weight uponher fair young head.
He longed to throw her a last reassuring glance--to leave with her theabsolute faith that with every power of his being he would uphold andsteady her in the rough and desolate way.
For since he came from Venice he had not ceased his vigilant study ofthe 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'srobes, across the great space between them, in the sunshine of theloggia--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 methis gaze and understood the full depth of his devotion, the ghost of asmile--as if it had been granted him to bring her in this hour ofmartyrdom one little ray of human comfort.