The Royal Pawn of Venice Part 17

Her breath came gently and broke in a restful sigh; she lay quietly within the shielding arms that had held her back from the dread abyss; the light of recognition was dawning in her eyes.

The Lady Beata trembled for joy; but she scarce dared move or speak; she kept her eyes fixed on the dear, fragile face,--deep in her heart that ceaseless prayer for life.

Maestro Gentile was dumb with awe:--it was a miracle! He stood watching, intent to help--holding his breath lest he should work some harm, while he kept guard over the nurse who held the sleeping child; he was so completely under the spell of that wonder-working will that he needed scarce a sign to work with her.

But the Lady Beata was no thaumaturgist; only a loving woman, standing where science had failed, translating another's desperate need from her own depths of sympathy--arresting the oncoming shadow because of her faith and her great love.

"Now!" she exclaimed under her breath.

She laid the infant on its mother's breast; its dainty breath came and went upon her face with the fragrance of a violet. She uncurled a little crumpled, rose-leaf palm and pressed it close upon the mother's cheek--never moving her gaze, with the will of life strong within it, from the eyes in which recognition had dawned with a strange, sweet surprise. A smile was brooding on lips and eyes. One baby-hand lay clasped in Caterina's--the wee pink fingers closed on hers like the tendrils of a vine.

The Lady Beata's heart throbbed to breaking, but her voice came low and calm--stilled with the pa.s.sion of her gladness, as Caterina's eyes smiled into hers:

"It is thine own little son, who hath need of thy love:--G.o.d's wonderful gift of joy that only mothers know!"

XVII

With whatever magnificence of pageantry the ceremonies of the Baptism and Coronation of the infant Prince of Galilee were surrounded--and under the tutelage of Venice and the auspices of Cyprus which aspired to the splendor of an Eastern Empire, there could be nothing lacking--there were n.o.bler aspects of that brilliant festival which those who witnessed never forgot.

The Emba.s.sies which had been despatched to all friendly courts had returned with deputations of rejoicing; a fleet from Venice and ships from the East had brought costly gifts of welcome and men, high in dignity, charged to represent their governments: and the Admiral Morenigo, with two Provveditori had arrived to stand sponsors for the Grandson of the Republic. In the vast banquet-hall of the palace, decorated with all its ancient heraldic devices and trophies of Crusades and Eastern victories, the Coronation Feast was spread, where presently the knights of the n.o.blest families of the kingdom would count it an honor to serve: and the splendid city of Famagosta was gay with the suites and banners of foreign guests.

But, for all that, it was the _People's Day_--for the young Queen had willed it so.

"Let proclamation be made throughout the land," she had said, "that all, of every degree, may share the festivities, and come to pay their homage to the infant King. And bid the mothers bring their little ones."

The people thronged from far and near until Famagosta could hold no more; from Nikosia, from Larnaca and Limasol and Kerynea and other cities and districts of Cyprus, came great deputations of burghers, with those peasants from the nearer _casals_ and hamlets whom the invitation of their gracious Sovereign Lady had reached and who were not restrained by the unwillingness of their n.o.bles: for there were still some among the ancient families of the island who looked with disfavor upon Ja.n.u.s and his successors.

The Queen had not shown herself to the people since the birth of her little son; and they knelt along her pathway as she pa.s.sed across the Piazza San Nicol, from the palace to the Duomo, holding their children up that she might bless them--for it was a miracle! She had come back from Death's door to rule and bless their land!

"Sancta Maria!"

Before her on the golden cushion of state were borne the sceptre and the quaint Royal Crown of Cyprus of the time of their first king, Guy de Lusignan--heavy and far too rough for her delicate brows to endure; and the Councillors and Counts of the kingdom, the knights and n.o.bles and ladies of the court made a brave array. But the people,--the peasants,--half-dazed by their unaccustomed nearness to such magnificence, not feeling as did the people of Venice that the fetes of the kingdom were meant for them, had looked on stolidly at all the bravery of the pa.s.sing procession and at the glitter of the insignia,--showing no sign of greeting until a white, girlish figure stood under the palace portal.

"_Panagia mou!_ Holy Virgin!" The familiar e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n came, half-suppressed, in a whisper of awe, from hundreds of voices. For the words of the Cyprian peasant were few, and this appeal to their most revered image of the Virgin sufficed for the expression of their deepest emotions. Was it, in truth their Queen--or the blessed Madonna herself, who came forth from the palace arches in her sweeping robes, white and gleaming, her royal mantle of cloth of gold and her jewelled crown--like the beautiful ivory image in the Duomo of Santa Croce?--Very pale and fair and sad she was, yet with a smile in her eyes, as she turned from side to side to answer their greetings, which now broke forth rapturously.

The color flushed her pale face when their cries of loyalty arose, and she turned and took the little Prince of Galilee from her Eccellenza, the Royal Governess the Dama Margherita de Iblin, holding him high, close-pressed to her cheek for all the people to see, with a great glory of mother-love in her shining eyes. They rent the air with their sobs and shouts.

The child lay smiling on his mother's arm--serene and very beautiful; it was in truth a holy picture.

The populace forgot that it was their Queen; as never before, that any distance of caste lay between them--they forgot their native awkwardness and dread of the great ones--they thronged nearer, unafraid--only to touch her--to kiss some hem of her floating garments--to look in the face of the little child who was to be their King!

And when the mother and the child were gone into the shadows of the Duomo, so thronged with n.o.ble guests and with all the splendid Hierarchy of Cyprus that there was scarce room for the royal procession to pa.s.s to the High-Altar beyond the tomb of Ja.n.u.s, the hearts of the people in the Piazza joined in the chorus of love and benediction of the choirs within, as, with new hints of devotion in their patient faces, they folded their own little ones closer with some vague, struggling, incomprehensible sense of aspiration--they were one with their Royal Lady and the Blessed Madonna, in the sacred mystery of Motherhood.

In the s.p.a.cious apse the Hierarchy and the Royal Court were ranged for the ceremonial, and back of them a low three-arched opening at one side of the apse, supported on columns of polished porphyry clasped with grotesquely hammered copper, gave glimpses of palms waving in the great Court of the Tombs; gave glimpses also of the Monks of Troodos who had come hither with all their numbers, to witness the solemn services of the dedication of their infant king to his high trust.

And just within the portal, in strange contrast to the pomp of his surroundings, stood Hagios Johannes Lampadisti, "the Illumined"--a wild, stern figure, in his sombre robes--unchanged for any highest festival--with the symbol of solemn sacrifice on his breast, beyond all thought of admiration or of reproach for the splendor about him, his prophetic gaze fastened on the face of the Queen with imperious intensity--one hand slightly extended towards her, holding out his cross of thorns.

When the solemn rites were over and the Queen had received her child again from the arms of the Archbishop of Nikosia, Hagios Johannes, never moving his eyes from her face came forward with slow movements, and Caterina, with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, lifting her eyes beheld the mystic gaze of Hagios Johannes and knelt down before the altar, straining her baby close to her breast.

"Dear Christ in Heaven!" she cried, in the dialect of the people. "I give him to Thee!--I give _my All_ to Thee! He and I, we will live for Thee; and for this People of Cyprus!--so Thou and the Blessed Mother be our helpers."

The Queen's Councillors in their splendid robes of office, looked in amazement to see their Queen forget her state in such a presence, and outrage every precedent by crying out in the unlearned language of the people, before this stately company; and the face of the dignified Primate flamed with wrath at this unseemliness. But Caterina, noting nothing, turned to receive their homage for the infant King, for whom as by an inspiration, she had publicly offered these vows, from the depths of her heart.

As the procession moved out into the sunshine of the Piazza, she held the child up again to the eager, waiting throng--the light gleaming on the tiny coronet above his baby-cap as she spread out his dimpled hands with a motion of welcome, saying quite simply:

"This is your King. Love him, dear people of Cyprus!"

And she would not give the infant back to the Royal Governess, but carried him herself in her own arms across the Piazza, held up for the people to see--which never before had a queen of Cyprus been known to do. But there was a light in her face which silenced those who would have spoken of ways more seemly, and it was a triumphal procession to the palace. But she paused before the peristyle, turning to face the people again.

"There is welcome for every Cypriote," she said, "men, women and little children, who come this day to pay homage to their infant King; and good cheer in the palace for all," and signing to the attendants that they should be made to enter she pa.s.sed in, smiling, before them.

The child lay in his cradle in the splendid _Sala Regia_, under the canopy blazoned with the arms of Cyprus--a little, helpless, smiling child--guarded by the Councillors and Counts of the kingdom; and near him stood the Queen with all her court, who for this day only had put off their mourning that no suggestion of gloom nor any hint of evil omen might shadow the royal baptismal and coronation fetes. The ladies were dazzling in gems and heirlooms of broideries and brocades; the knights and barons of the realm were glittering with orders--here and there, above his costly armor, one showed the red cross of the Crusade, or wore the emblem of the Knights of San Giovanni. But the people, who never before had entered those palace doors, came surging--not afraid--nor shrinking from the novelty and splendor nor curious for it; they came to pledge their fealty to the baby-prince--a little child like their own--whose gentle mother asked their love--than which no monarch may bring a gift more royal.

XVIII

"Is there aught to fear, Aluisi?--Thou seemest overgrave," the Lady Beata asked anxiously as her son came late, one evening into her private boudoir in their suite in the palace; he looked unusually weary and depressed.

"There is always much to fear," he answered, with no brightening of his anxious face in response to his mother's smile.

"But not now--surely not now! She hath won the heart of the people--these fetes were a triumph--they almost gladdened her. And now, poor child, she hath the little one to bring her comfort."

"Aye, Madre mia; she hath perchance won the love of the simple folk; but it is a powerless love."

"Aluisi!--thou art not like thyself to scorn it."

"I may well be not like myself in so strange a land," he answered bitterly. "But I know not scorn; nor hopeless trust, neither."

His mother watched him wondering, as he, who was usually so self-contained, strode impatiently about the chamber, as if its limits fretted him.

"A few cries of loyalty--a group of peasants kneeling--make a pretty showing--a tribute to bring her comfort--but it is the chaff before the wind, when danger cometh. And she hath never spoken of the many fiefs from which they came not--withheld by command of their jealous n.o.bles.

This peasantry hath no initiative--no aggressiveness. How wouldst thou that they should save her when danger cometh?"

"What danger, Aluisi?"

"The ever-present danger from without and within," he answered despondently. "One knoweth not from whence the first blow shall come."

She was silent for a moment, seeking how she might pursue the theme without further irritating him.

"If the peasants are powerless," she said, "the burghers are strong. And they came in throngs to the coronation."