Part 66

The agonized mother at her feet kept up her passionate entreaties.

Caterina started up pale and trembling, holding out her hand to the kneeling figure and drawing her forward:

"Counts and Barons of the Realm, Judges of the Court and all ye people who look to us for protection! We have sworn before you all to uphold the laws of Cyprus--we will not fail you!" she protested. "Yet, oh I beg you to remember that together in this Chamber we have prayed to-day that we might temper judgment with mercy!--Let us not sign it!"

A low murmur of sympathy echoed through the assembly, half-assenting, and Caterina, perceiving it hurried on.

"Let us rule together wisely," she besought them, "and for the honor of Cyprus! Let it not be told that our first meeting in this noble assembly hath been darkened by a sentence of death upon one of our own nobles! Madonna mia! Grant us to be merciful--spare the noble house of Montferrat; let the penalty be exile!"

There was a confused murmur in the Hall of the Assizes: disjointed words punctuated the low babel of sounds: "Exile!" "Exile with confiscation!" "Death!" "Mercy!" "Death and Confiscation."

They scarcely knew whether they prayed for death or mercy, or whether in their souls they wished for justice or pardon, for the question was too weighty to be solved by law, since a nation's peace might hang upon it. They knew not if they saw distinctly, for the mist that seemed to cloud their vision--a mist enfolding two women like a halo--the one tall, black-robed, superb in anguish, with pathetic lines of age upon her hair and brow, and in her eyes, darker than night, such frenzy of supplication as one may only offer for a dearer than self: the other young, tender, fair--all compassion, divine in forgiveness and comprehension--for were they not both mothers, and had she not suffered the irreparable loss that she might learn to shield grieving mother-hearts? She held the Countess of Montferrat closely clasped as if she would sustain her in her trouble.

"Not confiscation!" she pleaded. "Hath not this mother enough to suffer in knowing that her child hath missed the highest trust? Shall we add this also to her pain, and take from her the estates which have been the home of her people for long ages? Shall she not take the vow of fealty to the State, instead of her child? And for the Dama Ecciva--we grieve that it must be exile--yet the safety of the Crown demandeth it. Be merciful--dear people!"

It was a woman's reason--but a woman's heart, stronger than law or precedent, had won the day.

XXXIV

"A confidential communication of deep import to Cyprus--so thou come at once, and alone. 'The Prisoner in the Castle.'"

The Signor Aluisi Bernardini read the note a second time with frowning brows, for there was more than one prisoner, even of this recent conspiracy, in the castle, and the hand was disguised or unknown to him, and he could but guess at the identity of the sender of this mysterious message, which had been brought him, quite openly, by one of the castle guards.

The man stood waiting at the door of his study, until he called to him:

"Thou hast a message for me from----?"

"The Dama Ecciva de Montferrat, Eccellentissimo," the messenger answered, readily.

"Deliver it."

"I was to remind your Excellency that the galley will sail to-morrow for Venice--if your Excellency should have despatches--the Dama de Montferrat feared that it might not be known beyond the castle."

"Is this known within the castle and by order of the Castellan?" Bernardini asked quickly, in surprise.

"Eccellentissimo, the word came to me by the Dama de Montferrat, in confidence. I have no other message."

The Bernardini pondered a moment. She had meant him to feel that the case was urgent, for no hint of the immediate sailing of the prisoner's galley for Venetian waters had yet reached him, who was usually foremost in any information that touched upon Venetian interests. It might be a ruse, or a mere plausible excuse to her messenger.

"Is there aught else in which I may serve the Dama de Montferrat?" the Bernardini asked with assumed nonchalance, partly to gain time to decide upon his own course of action, yet hoping to throw some little light upon the mystery.

"It is written in the note. Doth your Excellency bid me return alone?"

The man's manner was insistent: he had been shown a jewel of value that should be his if he brought the Bernardini back with him, and such fidelity as might thus be purchased, Dama Ecciva could count upon.

"Nay: I follow," the Bernardini answered, waving him on before,--"yet not too closely. At the castle wait for me."

"Of deep import to Cyprus," he repeated to himself, as he made his way across the breadth of the city to the citadel: he was alone save for his horse, who often brought him a sense of almost human companionship, and to-day the responsive quiver of the animal, as his master laid a caressing touch upon his arched neck, gave him an assurance of fidelity that was helpful. For the matter of this conspiracy had sorely wrought upon him and he might not ignore such a message, though it came from one so unreliable as Dama Ecciva, for she was surely in touch with the disaffected nobles. It might be a new conspiracy--yet it was more likely a mere whim, or an attempt to get her sentence remitted--poor girl!

But he felt no emotion of compassion towards her, save for her duplicity, as he was conducted to the apartment which the Queen had had prepared in the castle for her young prisoner of State. By the Queen's grace, also, the Countess of Montferrat occupied the royal apartment under the same roof and was permitted at certain hours, to visit her daughter, though never without surveillance. But for one so high in authority as the Bernardini there were no restrictions and he soon stood confronting the Dama Ecciva in a small cabinet, which by the Queen's mercy had little the aspect of a prison; for she had thought of the mother, as she gave her orders for the prisoner's comfort, and of the last days that she and her daughter might spend together in their native land, and her tender heart had overflowed to them; there were even flowers from the royal gardens, and the air was fragrant; but in Dama Ecciva's manner there was no softening change.

"So your Excellency hath even deigned to respond to the request of a prisoner?" she exclaimed by way of greeting, and lingering with a little mocking pretense on the last word.

"If it be within my power----" he began tentatively.