The Royal Pawn of Venice Part 24

"My Lords," cried Dama Margherita, fearlessly, "the writing on this parchment is not true."

The hand of the Chief of Council fell to his sword, as if he would have struck her down--then--remembering that she was but a woman, in spite of her splendid courage, he withdrew it with a shower of muttered oaths.

"It is the writing which Her Majesty will sign to insure the safety of her child," he a.s.serted, in uncompromising tones.

The Queen turned from one pitiless face to the other and knew that there was no hope for her.

"My G.o.d, I shall go mad!" she moaned, as she seized the pen with trembling fingers, unconscious that she had spoken: then in a last, desperate appeal, she cried to Fabrici:

"Most Reverend Father, by your hopes of Heaven, I implore you--give me my boy again! _il mio dilettissimo figlio!_ See, I sign the parchment!"

and with feverish strokes she wrote her name; then with hands strained tightly together, awaited her answer.

Fabrici moved uncomfortably, turning his gaze away from the stricken, overwrought face: his cruel triumph began to seem unworthy.

But Rizzo calmly affixed the Royal Seal, covering it with the small wooden case prepared for its protection and knotting it firmly in place with the silken fillets--so careful lest a bruise should show upon the fair, waxen surface--he who could crush a woman's heart to breaking, or watch the life-blood dripping from some cruel wound that he had made, as lightly as he would drop the red wax for his stolen signet--it was all one to his deadly purpose.

"Thanks, your Majesty," he said, "there are yet other doc.u.ments to be signed," and he laid them before her.

"My child!" she cried in extremity; "have mercy--restore him to me--I have fulfilled your pleasure!"

"Your Majesty hath forgotten these," said Rizzo, "and the penalty--if they are left unsigned."

Again she seized the pen and wrote her name as with her life-blood--great veins starting out on her white forehead, her eyes dim and blurred, her heart beating so that she scarce could trace the words that seemed an irony:

"_Caterina, Regina!_"

"At last!" she gasped, as the pen fell from her hand--"_Madre Sanctissima_--they will bring my boy!"

"It is enough that he is safe," the Chief of Council answered her. "We did not promise more."

The Archbishop, stout-hearted though he was, felt his soul quail within him, as he glanced at the figure of this young mother agonizing for her child--his Sovereign to whom he had sworn fealty. He turned away from her to strengthen his resolve, taking a few paces forward, thinking perhaps of that "_act of homage_," over his own signature, duly witnessed, sealed and recorded in the Libro delle Rimembranze, "_Homagio et fidelta che e obligato a fare a la Magiesta sua, segondo le lege et usanze di questo regno_."

("Homage and faith, which he is obliged to swear to Her Majesty, according to the laws and customs of this realm.")

Margherita turned to Fabrici, who seemed to her less inhuman than Rizzo, for she had noticed the slight weakening in his att.i.tude. "Pardon me, your Grace," she said in a tone of quiet deference; "hath the learned body of the Queen's Council no knowledge of the crime of lese-majesty?"

Fabrici made no answer, being conscious-stricken; but Rizzo turned upon her with blazing eyes.

"Beware!" he stormed, "a man, for less, hath paid the forfeit of his life."

"Life were worth little," she answered undaunted, "if one must forfeit it for speaking truth--or for so poor attempt as mine to spare our Queen in such extremity."

He had looked to see her cower and shrink as men had often done under the glare of his angry gaze; but she stood before him tall, straight and calm--so near that he might have felled her to the ground; there was no fear in her deep eyes while she gave him back his look of hatred, unflinching; dimly he realized that this woman had measured the manhood in him and found it beneath her scorn.

Then--as if he had not been--she turned her gaze from him.

"Your Grace," she said proudly, "it is for the last time,--your Queen--whom you have sworn to uphold--and I--Margherita, of the most ancient n.o.ble house of the de Iblin, who have ever served their Sovereigns with their life--we _demand_ our Prince of you; and all Cyprus is with us!"

But if these dastardly usurpers were inexorable, heaven, more merciful, sent the respite of unconsciousness to quiet the mother's anguish just as she could bear no more. Rizzo was speaking when she tottered and fell into the shielding arms of Margherita.

"We may need the infant," he was explaining pitilessly, "to force a deed of renunciation in favor of Alfonso, _Prince of Galilee_."

"A sword thrust were more merciful," cried Margherita, now roused to a pa.s.sion of scorn. "How may a man dare perjure his soul to bring her to this!"

Rizzo having nothing further to gain from the interview left the chamber precipitately, muttering oaths; but the Archbishop lingered, from a dim, dawning sense of compunction, watching helplessly while Dama Margherita ministered to the victim of these Councillors who had been created to a.s.sist their youthful Queen in her weary task of ruling.

"More air!" Dama Margherita ordered of the guards, pointing to the closely barred windows. "Strong wine--and one of Her Majesty's ladies to aid me--I may not leave her for an instant. The Lady of the Bernardini were best--will your Grace give the order? We must needs save her life while she hath yet a favor to grant."

XXIII

It was the _festa_ of San Triphilio, patron-saint of the city of Nikosia; the great church on the bluff beside the castle was filled with the sickly flames of paltry candles brought by the peasants from far and near. From the quaint tower on the castle-wall one might see them coming in little processions, winding through the forest that clothed the plains below--pausing on the banks of the stream Pedea, to gather water-bloom and rushes to scatter before the shrine of San Triphilio, in memory of the early days when the city had sprung from the marshes to stand--fair and firm upon the hillside above them, beautiful to behold--girt about with impregnable walls and gateways, guarded by its famous citadel, and fortified within by churches dedicated to many saints.

To-day the gates stood hospitably open, to welcome the people who came and went unchallenged through them, wearing their holiday faces and bearing their burden of bloom and green--lotus flowers for the altars, and rushes to scatter on the steps before them--pausing before they entered the sacred precincts to lave their hands in the 'Fountain of Ablution.'

It was truly a _festa_ of the people, and the Cyprian peasants who were a gentle, superst.i.tious, ignorant race, devoutly subject to their priests and trained to the letter of their religious rites, came in from the mountains and the neighboring villages in numbers but rarely seen in the city: a motley throng--yet no shepherd among them was too poor to wear the boot of dark-green leather reaching to the knee--the _bodine_ roughly fashioned and tough enough to protect them from the bites of the serpents which infested the island.

Here and there some shepherd was leading with pardonable pride a sheep who gave a more than usual promise of fine wool, its extraordinary tail, bushy with soft long fleece, carefully spread out on the tiny cart to which it was harnessed for its own protection. It came, meek-eyed and wondering, if a little weary, to this _festa_ of San Triphilio, to whom its first shearing would be vowed, as a special tribute to the saint and a talisman to shield the flocks upon the mountains.

The shepherd might draw himself away, perchance, with a mingling of caste-feeling and of superst.i.tion, from some poorer villager of the sect of the "Lin.o.bambaki"--a dark, unkempt figure, with his scarlet fez, his string of undressed poultry hanging from his shoulder, even on this day of _festa_ when the saints give all good Christians holiday! But he, poor man, was neither Christian nor pagan--a wonder that the good Lord made him so!--(expressed with devout crossing and genuflexion)--and he would sell a fowl on a holiday for the asking and the few copper _carcie_ that it would bring him, as though he were quite all Mussulman and not half Christian, as his contemptuous nickname signified--a mixture of royal linen and plebeian cotton! His touch might well defile the sacred sheep!

Here was a picturesque peasant-priest from the province of Ormidia, who had left his work in the fields and was moving among the crowd with a slow dignity of motion and the mien of some antique statue--with sheep-skin garments of no shape, nor fashion, nor color, to mark his date--his hair flowing in loose waves to the throat, from under the high, conical hat, his full curling beard and moustache obscuring the lines of the face and intensifying its impa.s.siveness--only in the eyes, without curiosity, a mild look of question at the strangeness of the ways and sights of cities--such as some shepherd-G.o.d might wear,--reserving judgment.

To-day, also, some stray brother of the lower order of the Knights Hospitallers might be seen among the throng,--a white star, eight pointed on the breast of the black gown with which in early ages he had been invested by the Patriarch of Jerusalem: and near him some Crusader, with the red cross on his silver mail.

The burghers, too, were abroad in the arcades of the streets of Nikosia, gathering in groups before the Palazzo Reale which had been the residence of the kings of the island until Ja.n.u.s had removed his capital to Famagosta.

But Nikosia had always been a cradle of loyalty in spite of a floating population of strangers who came thronging to visit her monuments and palaces--to see the wonder of her merchandise gathered from the riches of her own fertile land--fruits and wines and silks and jewels, broideries of gold and silver wrought by her peasant women among their vines--exquisite vessels of beaten copper from the famous mines which had baptised this island of Cyprus. But there were carpets also from Persia, and fabulous Eastern stuffs--linens from Egypt, gossamer-fine; and carvings of ivory and gold, and drugs and spices from Arabia. There were slaves too--most fair to look upon--everything that might minister to the luxury of a great city, as there were churches, of many religions, and altars to many saints.

Suddenly a troop of hors.e.m.e.n dashed rapidly through the open gates and into the heart of the city among all the loitering holiday-wanderers, rousing them to instant strenuousness.

"There is news!" some one cried startled. "They have come to pause at the palace of the Vice-Roy. The leader is already within--he hath not waited for his gentlemen to announce him!"

"Aye, there is news:--may the Saints have mercy!" one of the burghers answered to the quick questions of the visitors from the hamlets. "And it is strange news, I wot--Heaven help us! For that was our own Seigneur, Pietro Davilla, new created a Knight of St. John, and gone but this morning, with all the gentlemen and squires of his household, to pay his homage--a leal Knight to Her Majesty. It must be some dread matter that hath chanced to turn him from such duty and purpose ere he could reach Famagosta."

"That was the Seigneur Davilla, on the black champing steed? one of the Councillors of the Realm?" a stranger asked.

"Aye, man; thou art in luck to see our Seigneur with all his bravery of men and horse! That was he who entered the palace of the Vice-Roy."

"And that other--all armed, with vizor down--the steed that bore him foaming with haste, as if his hoof had scarce touched ground?"

"I know not: but he weareth the colors of the Royal House. He hath the look of some spent herald. See, they summon him from within! It must be that he bringeth tidings from Famagosta. Pray Heaven it is well with Her Majesty!"