She had dashed out under the arcades and was leaning between the columns, making her quick eager comments to the bevy of maidens who had followed her, as the little train of slaves bearing the royal gifts pa.s.sed through the court-yard of the palace.

"A regal mantle of cloth of gold, with its gleam of jewels for her lorn Majesty--who will never again wear aught but trappings of woe, if she might have her will--it is a waste of treasure!"

"For shame, Ecciva!"

"Nay; for we are only _we_--not the Dama Margherita; nor the Lady of the Bernardini.--Will the mourning bring back the child?--One may weep one's life away in vain."

"Thou hast no heart, Ecciva: how should we not grieve with her!"

"So it pleaseth one to grieve, I am well content. But the way of weeping is strange to me. Methinks it would be kinder to cheer her soul with some revelry--or a race on that splendid Arab steed, stepping so daintily, with its great dark eyes and quivering nostrils, where the red color comes! The Sultan himself hath chosen this beauty for Her Majesty--she who perchance will never mount him, scorning to do aught that would make the blood flow warmer through the veins;--going daily to San Nicol with her taper and knowing naught of pleasure in life; unless it verily pleaseth her to grieve! What availeth it to her that she is Queen!"

"What availeth it to her to win the love of the people as none hath ever done before!" Eloisa cried hotly, moved from her timidity by her indignation. "That wilt thou never know, Ecciva, who dost so belie thy heart with thy unkind speech. But verily"--she pursued, relenting--"thou art far gentler than thy speech--not untrue, as thou wouldst have us believe!"

"What is '_untrue_'?" Dama Ecciva asked, undisturbed. "How may one know?

Shall one ask Carlotta?--Or Queen Caterina? Or--if he might but answer us now--the charming Ja.n.u.s?--My brain is too little to unravel the mystery."

x.x.x

Naples also found the moment propitious for re-a.s.serting her baseless claims to this much-disputed crown; since the death of the infant King had left the Queen without a successor in her own line, and might dispose her to look with favor on the proffer of the hand of Don Alfonso of Naples who would graciously consent to accept the position of King-consort--instead of that of "Prince of Galilee," which had not proved to be the imposing, permanent honor his partisans had fondly hoped.

Meanwhile, with the persistence worthy of a better cause, his supporters had ingeniously thrust him forward--a compliant puppet--from one scheme into another--all tending toward this same n.o.ble end. Immediately after the failure of Rizzo's conspiracy, he had been betrothed to the illegitimate daughter of King Ja.n.u.s--one of the three children mentioned in his will--who with her two brothers, had been sent to Venice to avert possible disastrous consequences; a small following in Cyprus upheld this match--so eager were they that some descendant of their charmer King Ja.n.u.s, should keep the crown of their realm, that they granted the Neapolitan Prince Alfonso the shadowy t.i.tle of "Prince of Galilee."

But after the death of his young betrothed, Alfonso had followed Carlotta to Alexandria, where Rizzo now held the honorable post of Amba.s.sador to the Sultan from the Court of Naples; and here, while Venice was still playing her game, sub-rosa without the overt confession of power that came later--Rizzo, the arch-schemer, first sought to bring about the adoption of the prince of Naples by Carlotta--as heir-presumptive to her rights; and later, as her following among the Cyprian n.o.bility increased, proposed Alfonso for _husband_ to Carlotta.

But now, since the strength of Venice could be no longer doubted, Rizzo, holding ever in view the ascendancy of his chief and with an astounding faith in his own magnificent insolence, rose to the occasion, and sailed on a secret emba.s.sy for Cyprus to propose the hand of Alfonso to Queen Caterina herself!

The details of this romantic intrigue were not known until long afterward in the court-circle, except by the few who had intercepted and frustrated the carefully-laid plans; but there were many hints of some concealed happening of deep interest which made delightful themes for romantic conjecture whenever the younger maids of honor found themselves happily without the dignified supervision of the Lady of the Bernardini and Madama di Thenouris, or the equally-to-be-evaded younger maid-of-honor, Margherita de Iblin.

"Something has happened, and no one tells us anything," one of them declared discontentedly when curiosity had reached an unbearable pitch, and the rumors of which they had caught echoes were growing in interest.

"There was a fire high upon the hills one morning; some say it was a beacon fire."

"There are always rumors that mean nothing," said Eloisa quietly.

Dama Margherita had been kept in close attendance upon the Queen, who had been often in counsel with the Counts of the Chamber of late, and Eloisa had an uneasy sense that it devolved upon her to uphold the quietness of discussion for which Dama Margherita always strove.

"Nay, Eloisa--that strange craft, hiding back of the great rock on the coast--without lights or colors--why was it anch.o.r.ed there, in sight of the signal-fire, instead of in the port where it had been safer?"

"Thou wilt have it a beacon-fire," Eloisa interposed again; "it is in truth more romantic than a blaze some wanderer may have lighted to do duty for his camp."

But no one answered her, they were all humming about Dama Ecciva, interrupting each other with excited questions; for Dama Ecciva had been, if possible, more mysterious and tantalizing than ever since these rumors had been afloat--which was a sign that she could tell something if she would. "So, my pretty friends!" she answered with a silvery laugh, "for once it entereth your thought that there be matters about which we--the Maids of honor of Her Majesty--are not worthy to hear!"

"I make exception of the Dama Margherita, to whom Her Majesty is honey-sweet!" she added, as her glance rested on Eloisa; and growing hot as she dwelt upon the thought, she went on--"she hath a manner quite insufferable--she, who hath not more right than I to rule this court. If one were to put the question to our knights--'an Iblin or a de Montferrat?' would it make a pretty tourney for a Cyprian holiday?"

She laughed a mocking, malicious laugh; then suddenly stretched out one slender hand and made a descriptive motion as of tossing her glove into the centre of a distant circle--her eyelids narrowing until they seemed almost to close--a strange light escaping from them--her breath coming with slow pants, as if from suffocation--the hand dropped at her side betraying her pa.s.sion by convulsive movements trembling through the tinted finger-tips.

In the bizarre Cyprian costume which many of the ancient Greek patricians still retained, she seemed of a different mold from the young Venetian gentlewomen of the court of Caterina--like some fantastic fury, half-elf, half-woman.

"_The Melusina!_" Eloisa whispered, shuddering: "thou mindest me of her.

I like thee not in this strange mood!" while the others drew away from her with a faint cry of protest.

But Ecciva's momentary mood of pa.s.sion pa.s.sed as quickly as it came; and she answered her companions with a tantalizing, sparkling smile, rallying them on their seriousness, and flashing whimsicalities around the circle like some splendid, inconsequent fire-fly.

Her dark hair, woven with coins and trinkets, fell in innumerable long slender braids behind, from under a coronet of jessamine blossoms strung together upon strips of palm, which clasped the cl.u.s.tering waves of hair closer about her face--pure and colorless as old ivory. Her robe, of green brocade, richly embroidered with gold, fell over full pantaloons of scarlet satin which were tightly bound about the slender ankles by jewelled bands, displaying to advantage the tiny feet, clad in boots of soft, yellow kid, fantastically wrought with gold threads; the robe parted over a bodice of yellow, open at the throat, around which chains of gold and jewels were wound in undue profusion.

"It is thou, perchance, Ecciva, who knowest not how to win the favor of Dama Margherita," ventured one maiden, bolder than the rest; "for with us hath she ever been most gracious. And for Her Majesty, the Queen----"

But a sudden impulse had come to Ecciva to cover herself with glory by making her companions sharers in the news of which she had gotten knowledge by a fashion peculiarly her own.

"Nay: leave the Queen to the Dama Margherita for this one blissful morning," she interrupted without ceremony: "for I have news--verily; and they may return ere it be told. Which of you knoweth aught of the Holy Sister Violante--she of the down-held lids and silent ways--who slipped into the court the night of that _great signal fire_ upon the mountain, behind the citadel?"

She scanned the eager faces triumphantly, but no one had anything to tell.

"For verily the Sister Violante maketh part of this strange mystery,"

she proceeded after a moment of impressive silence. "She and the great signal fire--of which no one knew aught!--so innocent were all the gentlemen of the court--and the Bernardini most of all! But they are parts of one romance; and the Violante came to influence Her Majesty; the Violante, with her devout ways, wearing the habit of a holy sisterhood to which her gracious Majesty is wont to give undue reverence--being not apt to penetrate an intrigue--too fair a saint, by far!--The Sister Violante came to win Her Majesty to acquiesce in some strange bidding from Rhodes; or perchance from the Sultan himself."

"How knowest thou, Ecciva?" They crowded around her thrilling with pleasant excitement--the craving for which was unduly whetted by the splendor and aimlessness of the life of this Eastern court--for a romance with such a beginning might have an indefinitely delightful termination; and Dama Ecciva had some strange knack of always knowing more than others of any savory morsel of gossip of which there might be hints in the air.

She looked at them nonchalantly, well-pleased at any sort of dominance, but never confessing it by her att.i.tude.

"Have I not eyes?" she questioned, with tantalizing slowness; "and ears?--Are they to grow dull for lack of usage?"

"Nay; tell us, Ecciva."

She drew nearer and lowered her voice mysteriously. "That Tristan de Giblet--he who would have killed the King the night that he climbed the city-walls and fled to Rhodes--we know the tale----"

"Aye, aye; we know it. And then?"--they pleaded impatiently.

But Dama Ecciva was not to be swerved from the irritating composure which pleased her mood for the moment:

"And one of us--hath any one seen Alicia de Giblet? She hath not been among us since that night of the _signal fire_."

"She hath been ill, in the Chateau de Giblet this month past," several voices responded at once.

"Perchance, sweet maids;--or in some other less splendid castle where dungeons are of more account than the fine banquet hall of the de Giblet! And because Alicia is sister to this Messer Tristan--I have done much thinking of late--it is time for the Bernardini to return. Let us give over talk."

"Alicia de Giblet was sister to that traitor!" one of them exclaimed indignantly; "and we never dreamed it! But she was _gentilissima_; _poverina_! Ah, the pity of it!"

"But how came she ill, 'because of it,' as thou sayest, Ecciva?" Eloisa questioned, wishing ever to have a reason for her beliefs; "it was long since!"

"The night of the King's flight was long since--verily--before his coronation. Carlotta was Queen, then;--there have been wars and death and woe enough since then! But this night of the signal fire is but a month agone--and _that night came Tristan de Giblet to talk with his sister_, who let him into the Palazzo Reale. The daring of the man! We are not cowards--we Cyprians!"

"Ecciva!--how canst thou verily be sure!"

She touched her eyes again, mysteriously.