The Royal Pawn of Venice Part 43

And thus the night wore on.

At last she rose, weary and heart-broken.

"My brother," she said in trembling tones, "none of thine arguments move me: yet thou knowest I should grieve if thou, because of me, shouldst suffer exile and disgrace, or thy children be held from any honor they might win. But even for this I could not yield. Thy happiness and mine must be as naught in this great crisis, against the welfare of my people. Them only I must consider."

A torrent of imprecation rose to his lips, but he left it unuttered. For as he turned his angry glance upon her and saw her face pallid and distraught by the anguish of her struggle, with the strange gleam of unearthly strength in her sorrowing eyes--it would have seemed like cursing a spirit. He crossed himself unconsciously, drawing a little apart from her, and waited impatiently.

There was a motion of her lips, as if she had more to say: but her strength was spent, so that her voice would not come with her first effort. Cornaro was conscious as he watched her of his fear lest it should fail her utterly before she found her speech. He knew what he had to expect if he did not succeed in his mission, and for him the moment was crucial; others, for a far less bitter thwarting of the will of the Signoria, had suffered death--which had been hinted to him. He had meant to offer this as his supreme argument when all others had failed to coerce her: but instinctively he held it back, fearing to anger her to the point of stubborn refusal, for there was some unexpected power of resistance within the soul of this slight woman.

Just as he was beginning to a.s.sure himself that, at all costs he must use further persuasion, her voice came--far away and colorless:

"And if I yield----?"

He went nearer, almost abject in the joy of this sudden reaction, promising her with glowing visions, state, glory, luxury, honor, favor of the Senate, ease, everything that his vivid imagination could seize upon to tempt the fancy of a woman; but she waved her hand impatiently to arrest his quick flow of words.

"Not for myself--but for my people--what for them?"

"Everything!" he answered undaunted; "security, prosperity; they shall be ruled as Venice rules her provinces--ever more wisely than the people rule themselves. Thou knowest that, because of this, foreign States have come to plead that Venice would accept their submission."

She knew that this was true; but her heart was like lead within her as she raised her impotent clasped hands with a sudden, sharp cry of pain.

"My G.o.d! my G.o.d! I am not faithless to my vow--Thou knowest. I must choose their welfare, though my heart should break!"

As the Cornaro gave his hand to lead her to her chamber in the light of the early dawn, she turned to him pitifully imploring his comprehension of her motive: "The Holy Mother knoweth that I am not faithless to my people--since with the favor of the Republic turned from me, I might neither serve nor guard them.--My lot is bitter!"

But the day had dawned for him, if not for her. "Nay; trust me, sweet Sister and Queen, thou hast chosen wisely," he answered with easy gallantry, as he kissed her hand and would have left her where the Lady Margherita stood waiting with troubled eyes and heightened color to receive her--scarcely condescending to notice the Cornaro's homage or his gay, parting words--"your fair Queen hath done this night an act that shall send her name down through coming ages, wreathed with glory."

For words came easily to him, and he had been too well content with his own triumph and escape to weigh the effect of its cost upon Caterina.

But now, after the mockery of his conventional salutation--which none knew better than he to make an expression of profound deference--as he turned his bright gaze upon her, the strained pallor of her face with its deep lines of suffering smote upon him, and he addressed Dama Margherita again with some a.s.sumption of concern for his sister's welfare.

"I fear she is overwearied; but the long discussion upon business of the Senate hath been needful. Yet now there is only rest before her, and I may leave her, in confidence, in your gracious care."

But the Lady Margherita had turned impatiently from him to busy herself with the Queen before he had finished his speech; then she flashed him a glance which he found it hard to meet.

"We who love her need not your counsel, my Lord, to strive to undo your 'doing of this night. These are the apartments of Her Majesty. We need to be alone."

x.x.xVII

Was Venice insatiable in requirement?

"It is enough," Caterina pleaded impotently. "Venice cannot ask more!"

"Nay, it is little," the Cornaro answered, "and only that which shall bring thee further honor. The Provveditori will charge themselves with the details of the Royal progress--as the Signoria hath directed."

"Let me but sign the parchment, as it may please them," she urged, "for the last time with the Royal Seal of Cyprus--but spare me more! I would fain withdraw into the Holy House of St. Francis and be at rest."

But this might by no means be permitted; and the Amba.s.sador of the Republic was ready with his threadbare argument of ingrat.i.tude, with much other reasoning of which he was scarcely less proud.

"One giveth not a regal gift with the downcast air of compulsion--else were it base in him who receiveth. Bethink thee ever of thine honor and of that of Venice," he admonished his sister many times during the weeks of preparation that followed upon the Queen's decision; whatever the detail under consideration--and few escaped his vigilance--he was inflexible, and her opposition could not go beyond his announcement: "_It is the will of Venice._"

Where were the n.o.bles of this country tossed hither and thither like a shuttle-c.o.c.k at the will of the strongest, that they would not arm for resistance--nay--wrapped themselves in sullen silence in the seclusion of their estates, or gathered in great companies to plunge into the forests and forget their vexations in the comradery and excitement of the chase, while for Caterina the slow days pa.s.sed in agonized entreaty that some miracle might yet chance to save the realm for Cyprus?

Sometimes a wild hope came to her that this extremity might stimulate them to an uprising to save the integrity of their land: but a few words with those of the Council most devoted to Cyprus convinced her that the hope was futile. The days of national ambition were over for this people of many races: their luxuries sufficed for their content and lulled them into a lethargy which had so deadened their perceptions that the gradual encroachments of Venetian power could reach this climax without arousing them to action.

Even the burghers who had so valiantly defended their Queen in earlier days looked on in mournful inertia while preparations for the royal progress went forward, knowing that if Venice thus joyfully accepted the 'resignation' of their Queen--for thus had the act been freely translated to the Cyprian people--they were themselves powerless; and the day of farewell dawned at last, when the royal cortege pa.s.sed out from the palace-gates to the grand Piazza of Nikosia, where the formal act of renunciation was to be made.

It was a long and ceremonious procession--the high officials of the realm were there in splendid vestments, with many Venetian functionaries in crimson dignity among them--with a numerous escort of guards in full armor--with companies of cavalry and men-at-arms, while, in their midst the Queen, in regal velvet and pearls, rode surrounded by the knights and ladies of her court. But the color of her robe was black, as were also the garments of her maids of honor--of satin, soft and l.u.s.trous, reflecting the lights from their jewels as they gleamed in the sunshine,--yet, to the Emba.s.sy of Venice the sombre choice was displeasing, as an unpermissible expression of the Queen's sentiments.

"Hath Venice also concerned herself with sumptuary laws for the ladies of my household?" Caterina asked with ineffable disdain, when remonstrance had been made. And they, having gained so much, feared to press her further.

After the solemn ma.s.s in the Duomo, the magnificent chords of a jubilant Te-Deum filled the Piazza with harmonies--it was the music of a Triumph indeed:--the soldiers, the knights, the high functionaries of State, the priests and chanting choirs were all there; but the central figure under the golden baldachino, upheld by the barons of the realm and surrounded with royal honors, was not the Conqueror--but the victim--the prey--the sacrifice. It was rather they--the leaders of this pageant, in their crimson robes of office with the shadow of the banner of San Marco above them, who rode proudly, sure of the honors and emoluments that awaited them when Venice should echo to them the Roman cry of victory--"_Io Triumphe!_"

And now the Queen p.r.o.nounced the speech that Venice had decreed, wherein she claimed the love that her simple people had lavished upon her--

"_For Venice--to whom we have freely yielded our right._"

The words were strange upon her lips, and she spoke them stonily, as if she knew not that they had a meaning; and thus tortured from her, it may well be questioned whether the Recording Angel ever noted them in his book--yet they were her answer to the _popolo_ who thronged about her with tears and blessings, as she journeyed from city to city to repeat the mournful ceremony of farewell; and the people heard them with sobs and groans.

In every city, as one for whom life had died and speech had lost its soul--she uttered these words which Venice had decreed; in every city she looked on mutely from under her royal canopy--she who was so powerless--while the flag of the island of Cyprus was supplanted by the banner of San Marco, and the sculptured marble tablet with the winged lions guarding its triumphant inscription, was placed as a record of a kingdom too weak to rule.

FRAN. DE PRIULI VENETAE CLa.s.s.

IMPER. DIVI MARCI VESS.

CYPRI FELICITER Er.e.c.t.u.m EST.

NO. MCCCCLx.x.xVIII. 28 FEBRU.

How dreary the pa.s.sage across those wide waters to the sh.o.r.es of the smiling Adriatic for the desolate woman who had left them in the first flush of her youth, with hopes as brilliant as the skies of Venice, and with a promise as fair--to return to them lonely, despoiled, heart-broken, craving rest! The gray light of the storm-clouds by the banks of the Lido and the moan of the rising winds which threatened to engulf the Bucentoro and the fleet of attendant barges coming in state to meet the deposed Queen, were typical of the change.

Not caring for the splendor of her equipage, though the Doge himself was her escort--not deceived by the pageant of welcome that Venice offered, Caterina--very beautiful and pale and still, with the sense of the motive power broken within her--pa.s.sed up the long length of the Ca.n.a.l Grande by the side of the Serenissimo, receiving the glad homage of the people of Venice.

"Caterina Veneta! Caterina Regina!"

Venice was outdoing herself in triumph, showering regal honors upon her: the bells of all the Campanili were ringing a jubilee: music greeted her from the sh.o.r.es as they glided by--the portals wreathed with festal garlands, the beautiful city a glory of light and color; for the storm of the evening had pa.s.sed and the morning had dawned in sunshine, and along the Riva the people were thronging to welcome her--the Queen who had bestowed the gift of her kingdom upon Venice!

Yet how had the Republic kept faith with Cyprus? Step by step, through the years, drawing the velvet clasp closer--closer--until there was scarce life left--smiling the while: gathering in the revenues of the rich land amply, with no care to spend them on the welfare of the island, or for its increase: slowly, strenuously, with deft insinuations of filial duty, striving to dominate the young Queen's moral judgments and press the claims which were of Venice's own creation--jealously watching lest she become too popular, and hampering her action through the very officers sent in guise of help--lest through freedom she should in truth grow strong to rule: Year by year--stealthily--smiling under a cloak of splendor which the Cyprians loved, Venice had grasped at power--a little more, and a little more--until resistance was impossible.

Was it meet to receive her thus? Could she find smiles for the people to-day with the memories of her bridal pageant greeting her at every turn--a woman despoiled of hope--a widowed wife--a childless mother--a queen without kingdom or power?

Before the Palazzo Corner Regina, the long procession came to pause, and with the ceremonies that were meet, Zorzi Cornaro, brother to Caterina, knelt down bareheaded before the Doge and was knighted for his prowess in persuasion--since without his eloquence it might well have been that the Queen of Cyprus would not have given that complete and absolute surrender which was so graciously announced to all the allies of Venice as "_of the full and free determination_ of our most serene and most beloved daughter, Caterina Cornaro."

For the grace of Venice--when her smiling mood was on her, as for the fear of her life-crushing frown, men did her bidding without question, and never _dared_ to fail.

But Venice still claimed a final act of gift and of submission, where the Venetian people might be her witnesses: and when the domes of San Marco flashed in the sunset light, the procession entered in solemn state--the Senate and Signoria and all the Ducal Court, in full attendance--and once more Caterina knelt before the altar and repeated her hard lesson, taught by that imperious ruler who knew how to hold the sea "in true and perpetual dominion," and who would not suffer 'his beloved daughter' to fail in one jot or t.i.ttle of her act of renunciation.

The homecoming of the Daughter of Venice was over.