The Royal Pawn of Venice Part 13

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 a.s.syrian 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 rea.s.suring 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

XIV

Hagios Johannes, the holiest man in Cyprus, stood waiting in the vast, empty presence-chamber of the young Queen; for, since the sudden death of Ja.n.u.s, there had been no court-life in this palace of Potamia, and the gloom hung most heavily over the more sumptuous halls of ceremony.

Hagios Johannes--_the holy John_--they called this prior of the House of Priests from Troodos--the Mountain of the Holy Cross--after the name of the earlier Saint who had made the spot famous for the holiness of his living, for his boundless charity and the wisdom of his judgments, so that the people had gone to him in ceaseless procession with their sins and woes in the days of primitive Christianity in Cyprus, and had returned to their peasant homes the stronger to endure and to renounce.

Johannes the Lesser, this one called himself--being truly great and devout of heart, so that his vision was wise and true as that of Hagios Johannes the Greater.

A curtain at the further end of the audience-chamber parted to admit a stately figure in mourning-robes, as the Lady Beata of the Bernardini advanced to meet him, bringing the message that the Queen would receive him in an inner cabinet.

"She is very worn and tired, most Reverend Father, and in years so near to childhood that the n.o.bility and strength of her resolve are marvellous. And the comfort that she seeketh of thee she doth most sorely need."

The eyes of this strong and faithful friend gleamed with unshed tears as she turned them upon the prior, in tender appeal.

But to Hagios Johannes all courts were strange; the life of his mountain overflowed with possibilities of ministration which busied all his powers, and it was the first time that he had ever entered any of the palaces of the luxurious Kings of Cyprus--of which, perhaps, this summer palace of Potamia was the most sumptuous. The long corridors of precious marbles, with intricate carvings and gleamings of gold and mosaic displeased him, though he had no knowledge of their worth or beauty; but he stood aghast at the magnificence of the audience-chamber, and the huge a.s.syrian bulls which guarded the entrance gave a hint of pagan power and oppression which instantly angered him.

The appeal of the gracious Lady Beata but roused his indignation.

He was a stern, wild figure with his flowing beard, his long hair falling straight and unkempt about his brown throat; and his sombre monk's garment was wrought on breast and shoulders with a salient cross of natural thorns--the symbol of those monks of Troodos--the Mountain of the Holy Cross; and the Lady Beata trembled for the interview that was to be, as he answered her rudely:

"The dwellers in palaces of ivory have naught to do with wild men of the mountains who live close to nature and care only for suffering humanity.

I have Christ's work to do; let others bring her rose-leaves and honeyed words."

She laid a gentle, detaining hand upon him as he thrust aside the curtain of the inner chamber.

"Most Reverend Father, are not the words of our Lord and Saviour, as well for those who suffer in palaces, as for the wanderers and poor upon the earth?

"Are not the wounds of the spirit as deep in anguish as those of the physical man?

"May not the burdens of rulers be greater than those of the ruled?--Have compa.s.sion upon our Queen!"

"Christ knoweth not kings," he answered her, as he shook off her light touch--"save only those who bow to Him: and the mighty among men--aye--even he who calleth himself His Vicar upon earth--are puffed up with pride and know in their hearts no virtue in this--His sacred symbol." He pressed his rough hand hard against the thorns upon his breast as he spoke. "Hath not he--this false and sumptuous Vicar--but now a.s.serted that we, of the Holy Greek Church have no part in the Communion of the Holy Catholic Church on earth? Did Christ call the Latins only?" he ended fiercely.

It was a grievance that rankled; and Hagios Johannes had not learned the gracious art of self-control, being accustomed to feel that whatever he thought or wished was good--his hatred as well as that which appealed to him--since he honestly sought nothing for himself, despising riches and station from the depths of his soul, with an open scorn for the great ones of earth and an imperious a.s.sertion of his own methods and judgments which he would have denounced in any earthly ruler, however wise. He never dreamed himself an autocrat over that continuous stream of pilgrims who made their way into the House of Priests on Troodos: they were chiefly peasants, rude in ways and understanding, whose accustomedness to absolute methods and short words made their obedience the swifter; and the few more learned ones who came to consult him knew that in his heart he was faithful and seldom treasured the offense against him--though they may have decried his wisdom. But these came more rarely as his absolutism grew upon him, and the prophet of the mountains came down to the cities of the plains only to see the luxury of them--the sin and G.o.dliness of them, and to denounce them, in unmeasured words.

Within his soul, although he did not confess it to himself, the generations of men were separated by a wide impa.s.sable gulf--the rich and ruling cla.s.s, the G.o.dless, on one side; the poor, the suffering and lowly--the to-be-saved,--on the other, and none ever pa.s.sed across the deep abyss. He would have challenged any man who counted _him, Father Johannes_, in his hempen garment studded with thorns, among the rulers of men!

The youthful Queen, weary and worn indeed from the perplexities and struggle of the two long nights and days that had elapsed since she had sent her Councillor on his quest of "the holiest man in Cyprus," rose from her couch as the prior entered and advanced to meet him with a gracious reverence.

But he, unconscious of any rudeness, spoke at once, without turning his eyes upon her, and offering no homage.

"I am a plain man from the Mountain of the Holy Cross, your Majesty; I know naught of the ways of Courts. The matter should be great that calleth me from my work. Let it be presented, that I may be dismissed."

She was almost too weak to stand, and the rebuff smote her to the quick; her lip trembled slightly, but she only stretched out her hand to her beloved friend, drawing her close and leaning lightly upon her shoulder, that she might feel the support of loving companionship in her great need.

Father Johannes had been vaguely conscious of some movement in the chamber and involuntarily he turned towards this royal lady whom, as yet, he had never seen, but whose urgent summons had roused his indignation.

She looked so young and fair and simple in her heavy folds of mourning--so worn from vigil, with the lines of anguish and of a strange strength written in her white girl-face--that she might have been the vision of some youthful saint, wearing the rough cross of Troodos upon her breast, beneath her robe: and for a moment, the holy man was startled--did such heavenly visions, in truth, visit the palaces of the great?

There was a moment of stillness in which his wonder grew.

The breeze blew faintly in through the great arched openings, behind which rose the mountain chain that led to his own Troodos; there were the groves of pine, darkly green, below the hills, with their deep solitudes for prayer and meditation between the vast gnarled trunks; and the group of the two n.o.ble women before him--severely simple--was a vision of love and womanly grace and spiritual need; the younger one, all pleading and pain, clinging to the elder who closely enfolded her, her face strong in the strength of love. It was not like any life that he had ever seen--this holy man, whose personal life had been solitary and whose knowledge of human love, as it is known in happy homes, had died long years ago with the pa.s.sing of the mother who had borne him in her heart. It might be that he needed such a vision to redeem his spirit from the harshness which sin and pride in high places, and want and crime and poverty of spirit among ign.o.ble ones, had made him grow to think the whole of life!

He was very weary and his vision was not clear; for the previous day had been a solemn fast, and he had walked far and long since the early morning, that he might be the less delayed. He felt like kneeling where he stood--if perchance it should be a vision!--But he only bowed his head and waited--and his weakness pa.s.sed.

The younger one--the maiden with that strange mystery of pain and strength in her white face, was coming towards him.

"Father," she said, "hath none offered thee refreshment? Thou must indeed be weary, for the way is long. Zia, let us be served here--in sight of the great forest that will seem like home to our good Padre."

"Nay, nay," he interposed quickly, with an effort to shake off this incomprehensible spell and return to his wonted mood of protest, "for I have never banqueted in the palace of a Queen--your Majesty."

"Let it be brought," Caterina said, turning to the Lady Beata, "a simple meal; for I myself have need, having tasted nothing since the long vigil of the night--being too sore from my great perplexity." For she divined that she must be alone with the prior to melt his mood, which grieved her; but she had not the less faith in his judgment for his hatred of royalty, and at all costs she had the grace to crave for truth in the questions she would ask of him.

"My Father," she said with winning gentleness when they were alone, "we will speak together as father and daughter--it will be better so, for I was not born to Majesty, and I have sent to ask of thee thy counsel, for life is difficult. And for my hospitality--is it not offered to the pilgrim in thy House of Priests of the Troodista? Hath not our Lord Himself commanded the giving of the cup of water?"

He was startled at her learning: surely it was rare that women out of holy orders had such knowledge of Christian traditions. He looked at her reverently, still wondering, and would have spoken to excuse his rough speech, but that he knew not how to frame a thought so strange and new.

She motioned him to a seat where a table had been spread under the deep arches that looked toward the forest. There were wines and fruits in tempting chalices of rainbow gla.s.s and low baskets of ivory and chiselled silver, cooling with snow from the mountain; figs from Lefcara; _caistas_, golden and delicious, emitting a fragrance of glorified nectarine that rivalled the perfume of the wine itself; pomegranates--the gift of a G.o.ddess to the thirsty Cyprian land, planted, as was well known, by the royal hand of Aphrodite herself, each fruit holding a fair refreshment for a torrid Cyprian day in its sparkling, semilucent, ruby pulp: ortolans from the sea-coast, steeped in wine.

The table was a slab of oriental alabaster, polished like a jewel, upheld by griffins with outthrust tongues curiously contorted and entwined. But beyond the silken curtains of the palace-windows the forest and the hills, with a wandering breath of coolness from the mountain-breeze, drew and welcomed him, with some faint, new perception of the oneness of G.o.d's earth.

She had banished with a glance the maiden who stood waiting with her lute to give the customary accompaniment to the meal, and they were quite alone.

He crumbled his bread and swallowed his wine like a hungry man, drawing the wild, purple figs nearer, unconscious of the dainties which she did not press upon him, while he tasted the familiar food--the food which his Lord Christ had blessed to man's uses. So, also, the luxury of the service pa.s.sed unnoticed, as he fixed his eyes on the distant darks of his own forest, with the "Troodista" rising on a peak far, far away--that haven of distressed souls to whom he was a father of consolation. Her fingers toyed with the fruit that lay untasted before her, while the difficulty of speech struggled within her. Yet he felt, subtly, as he kept his eyes upon the hills, that he was in sight of the shadow of a soul in pain, and he waited--for once, oblivious of the distance between a palace and a convent.

"Thou art born a Greek, my Father?" she questioned. "Thou art a priest of the Greek Church--which my people love?"

The commanding habit of a lifetime was strong upon him and again his resentment rose to quench the softer mood which was possessing him, and of which he was afraid.

"I knew not that I had been summoned from my work for Christ to answer of myself," he said sternly. "If thou hast need of counsel, tell it quickly."

Again her lip quivered at the hurt, but she put it aside bravely, as she rose and moved backward for a pace further into the shadow. "I ask it for my people's sake--I being their Queen," she said, "and knowing that my people are rather Greek in feeling, I would do naught to hurt them."

How tenderly the words "my people" fell from the lips of this young, Venetian woman, who seemed almost a child--had their imperious Grecian Queen, Elena Paleologue ever so uttered them? Had she not named a boy to the highest See in the gift of their church--with no thought of fitness--but solely that he might be put aside lest he come between her and her greed of domination? Had she not plotted murder and whatever else might lie between her and the accomplishment of her will? His heart melted within him, and he rose and followed Caterina into the chamber.