Part 17

A Little page who had been leaning on the marble parapet beyond the terrace, came stealthily and beckoned to a comrade on the steps of the loggia.

"A troop of horse were coming across the plain," he explained in low, agitated tones, as the other reached his side, and followed him back to the post where he had been watching. "I saw them all the time Dama Margherita was reciting--Holy Mother, but it was long!--I thought the King was coming, and it was I that should carry the news to her Majesty--I came near crying out! But I could not see his orange plume, and I waited. They came slowly--Santissima Vergine! He was not there!"

He clutched his comrade's doublet with a trembling hand and turned an ashen face towards him.

"What ailest thee, Tristan?--thou who art already a damoiseau and shalt be a true knight? Thou art verily dreaming--I see nothing."

"They are gone within--in the first great court of the palace--those who came. They were the King's gentlemen--all the King's gentlemen--Messer Andrea among them. I thought the champing would have roused the Queen who hath been watching all the day. I am not afraid----" he gasped; "but it was so horrible!--Thou knowest, Guido, Messer Andrea never leaveth the King."

The boy's eyes were dark with fear.

"He will come with the others--he will surely, surely come," Guido asseverated.

They clasped each other close and pressed their fresh cheeks together, trembling so that they could scarcely speak, yet struggling to be brave, as became little pages that should be knights.

"They were so long," poor Tristan said in a choking whisper, "and it was so still--so still--no music, and they returning from the chase! And--when they came nearer, I thought I saw his horse, but I could not see a rider--and I thought, I thought--perhaps because it was dark--and I ran down the front of the palace to get nearer when they crossed the bridge. Ah, but the tramp was dreadful! And--and--it was his horse, and a squire leading him--and--behind them--oh Guido!--Then I knew."

"We will be knights, Tristan mio," Guido whispered, wiping away his comrade's tears while his own were falling; and then, straining each other convulsively, they broke down in sobs together.

* * * * *

Dama Ecciva stole up the steps from the terrace, and catching Eloisà's hand, dragged her forcibly away.

"Come quickly," she whispered, with chattering teeth, "Santa Maria Vergine! I am so frightened. Oh, the poor, poor Queen! That was why she hath been so strange--she hath truly seen the vision. Poverina, it breaks one's heart! And he but a week away! So gay and debonair, and beautiful as a god!"

There was no mistaking her wild eyes.

"Tell me!" Eloisà gasped.

"I was there in the pergola, and I saw them come--the frati from the Troödos in the midst of the troop of horse--with--with IT.--Oh Eloisà, it was true!--They are telling her now."

* * * * *

There was a stir in the great audience-chamber back of the loggia where Caterina sat--a sound of hesitant feet, as of many who came unwillingly, unutterably weary from the dull weight of evil tidings.

The muffled footsteps roused her from her revery and she turned her head and saw them coming. Her heart stood still for fear.

Messer Andrea came before the others, falteringly--as if youth had died out of him: he was pale and strange and no words fell from his blanched lips during that long instant while he crossed the interminable stretch between them, and Caterina waited, with all her tortured soul crying out for Janus.

Then the King's favorite, with the cruel story written in his anguished eyes, turned them full upon hers for one moment, that she might know--then bowed his head upon his breast and opened his arms, as if he fain would shelter her--

"Caterina----" he said--"Child----"

XII

In the first dazed days that followed, between the necessary adjustment of matters of state, and the many ceremonies incident upon the King's sudden death, there was scant time to discuss the rapid happenings; even in the court-circle they scarcely knew what was passing--still less how it had come about. It was said that Janus had died of malignant fever, due to the terrible malaria of the coasts where he had been hunting. Yet some hinted that there were natural poisons, as of the marshes, and others--more fatal: but this was with bated breath and kept well without the innermost circle of the court, for no one really knew. It was easy to talk of poison, but far less easy to make assertions implicating those who might be innocent; and, meanwhile, the complications surrounding the throne of Cyprus demanded infinite wisdom and despatch.

Almost before the Queen could lift her head after the shock of her husband's death, the nobles and barons of the realm had penetrated to her private boudoir and sworn her fealty, with a tenderness and reverence that deeply touched her. By the will which the King had left, Caterina Veneta was now Queen of Cyprus, with a Council of Seven appointed to assist her; and every Venetian who held a post in the Government was restless until the young widow of Janus, who had been crowned with all due ceremony in the Cathedral of Nikosia at the time of her marriage, had publicly received the full seal of her authority.

So quickly death had fallen upon the brilliant, pleasure-loving young monarch--so without warning--that it seemed to those of his court like some dread nightmare from which they might presently awake to a new morning, fair and gay as those they had known so little time ago, before the music and the mirth, the jewels and the festal robes that befit a court had given place to the gloom and mourning of these horrible days. As in a dream they had taken part in the sumptuous funeral ceremonies, feeling still that it could not be true--he was too young, too brave, too gay, too gracious, to have come so soon to this! And if to some of those young nobles it was rather the shock of the loss of a boon companion than a serious grief, there were many among them who, for the few bright words that cost him little--a smile--the grasp of his ready hand--permission to come and shine about him--now brought their tribute of adoring tears.

Meanwhile, in the halls of the palace, time moved with slow and halting footsteps: the stricken Queen came rarely among her circle of ladies, and only for short intervals, and the talk, however varied, was but upon one absorbing theme.

It was known that soon after the funeral, the Queen seeking how she might do highest honor in preparing the permanent tomb, had been told of the priceless sarcophagus of oriental jasper--the gift in early ages of the Emperor of the East to Santa Soffia in Nikosia, and she had sent an envoy to the brothers of the convent to ask that it be surrendered for the tomb of Janus, their king, promising whatever compensation they should ask.