Part 26

Then he turned from her abruptly and wandered away to weigh her question, looking into the depths of the great forest while he pondered and prayed to be enlightened. He must have sight of his own solitudes if he would keep his judgment free, and though she called to him, timidly, thinking he had forgotten her, he made no answer, being not yet ready. Surely, it could not be God's will that so fine a spirit should resign her claim to their uneasy crown!

It was long before he returned to her side, for the shadows were lengthening and a crimson light flamed in the West.

"Daughter," he said with deep solemnity, "it hath come to me with full light in answer to thy question, that thou, being crowned Queen and consecrated in the Duomo of Nikosia, together with King Janus, thy husband--whom this people loved--and decreed by him to hold this realm, which--for the first time in many years, and by his hand, is now united under one sovereign, that thy duty biddeth thee hold and rule it against all other claimants--were it even Carlotta who hath once been called its Queen.

"Rule thou this people with the fear of Heaven in thy true heart--so God shall make thee wise!"

She came slowly, as to a heavy task, and knelt before him, with clasped hands, kissing the crucifix which he held out to her; the red light streamed through the arches with a fierce illumination.

"Father--and Janus!" she cried--"hear my vow!

"To do for my people as Heaven and the Madonna shall teach me: to bear them in my heart and seek their happiness; to live for them alone! And if harm hath been--oh God, if harm hath been done--to nerve me to the more strenuous duty, that wrong may be forgiven!"

It was a moonless night in June, with lowering clouds and a threat of distant thunder echoing from the far mountains.

A crowd was gathering, low-voiced and eager, in the Piazza San Nicolò: a crowd chiefly of the people, and the faces and costumes of many races came out grotesquely under the spasmodic glare of the torches which flared about the standard of Cyprus, in the centre of the square--the standard was tied with mourning and wreathed with cypress. There were many women--here and there a peasant with a child slumbering in her arms, or clinging sleepily to the tawny silk scarf woven under her own mulberry trees. Here and there, with the fitful motion of the wind, the light touched the fair hair of a chance peasant from the province of La Kythrea into gleams of gold that a Venetian patrician might envy, or brought into sudden relief the smothered passion of some beautiful, dark Greek face. But the women were chiefly of the lower Cypriote peasant-type, heavy-featured and unemotional. There was a sprinkling of monkish cowls and of the red fez from the Turkish village of Afdimou which lay in seeming friendliness of relation close to the village of Ormodos, whose population was wholly Greek.

In front of the long façade of the palace of Famagosta a cordon of soldiers stood motionless, while before them the mounted guard paced slowly to and fro; and across the Piazza, with that impatient, surging crowd between, was faintly heard the steady footfall of the sentinels, measuring and remeasuring with unemotional precision their narrow beat before the entrance to the world-famed fortress of Famagosta.

A group of nobles in eager, low-voiced converse crossed the square, pressed through the cordon of soldiers and gave the password and the great door was opened to admit them and closed again.

Two burghers picked out a face among them, as the torches of their escorts flared.

"That was Marin Rizzo, Counsellor to the Queen; a man of power--unscrupulous."

"And more a friend--I have heard it whispered in Nikosia--to Naples than to Cyprus."

"Hast evidence for thy speech?" the other questioned eagerly in a lower tone.

"It is for that we must watch; the time is threatening."

"But Messer Andrea Cornaro was with him: he will know how to guard the interests of the Queen, having been so great a favorite with our Janus, and one for management, despite his courtly ways! Without our Messer Andrea, his niece had never been our Queen."

"Nay--nor if His Holiness had had his will. I had the tale from a source to trust, though the story was kept hushed. It would take one like our Janus, with his royal ways, to scorn the flattering offers of His Holiness! There were also threats!"

"Nay; threats would never move him, except to see the comedy thereof and make his mood the pleasanter! But I had not dreamed him saint enough for the Holy Father to sue to him for an alliance."

"Ah, friend, the ways of those above us be strange! But it was for this, I take it, that His Holiness--who hath a temper most uncommon earthly--sent none to represent him at the Coronation of the King."

The other shrugged his shoulders. "It lacked for naught in splendor; it was a day for Cyprus and for Nikosia."

"Vanitas Vanitatum," droned a friar of the Latin Church who had been standing near enough to catch echoes of their speech.

Both men glanced towards him and instinctively moved away.

"Aye; little it matters now--coronation honors or splendors for him! But he had a way with him!"

"And he was one for daring!"

They crossed themselves and lapsed into silence, as their eyes sought the banners drooping, shrouded, before the palace-gates, near the statue of their dead King--a very Apollo for beauty--the pedestal heaped high with withered tokens of loyalty and mourning.

But the mass of the waiting crowd were silent, scarcely exchanging a whispered confidence;--so still that the long, low boom of the surf upon the shore reached them distinctly, like a responsive heart-throb. They could hear the storm-waves outside the port dashing wildly against the rock-bound coast, with fierce suggestions of strife. But they knew that within their sheltered harbor their waiting galleys rode at anchor, ready to sail at a moment's notice--for Venice, for Rome, for Egypt--though the flags they bore were still at half-mast, with their King but a month dead.

There was a sense of suppressed excitement in the hush of the throng; almost, one might have said, an atmosphere of prayer. For the great bell of San Nicolò--the bell with that wonderful voice of melody--was ringing softly, as for vespers; continuously, as if the people had not answered to the call. Yet many a low-voiced "Ave" responded to the chime as now and again some toil-worn hand lifted the rosary that hung from a girdle, or clasped a rude cross closer.