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Hagios Johannes, the holiest man in Cyprus, stood waiting in the vast, empty presence-chamber of the young Queen; for, since the sudden death of Janus, there had been no court-life in this palace of Potamia, and the gloom hung most heavily over the more sumptuous halls of ceremony.
When the solemn rites were over and the Queen had received her child again from the arms of the Archbishop of Nikosia, Hagios Johannes, never moving his eyes from her face came forward with slow movements, and Caterina, with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, lifting her eyes beheld the mystic gaze of Hagios Johannes and knelt down before the altar, straining her baby close to her breast.
But within the little Chapel of the Fortress, Hagios Johannes wrestled alone in prayer; it leaped from his heart with groans and sobs that might not be restrained. Surely the merciful Father in Heaven would leave this pure spirit to rule the distressed people of Cyprus: "Were they found too sinful to win so great a boon?
"I thought it might have been the will of the Blessed Mother that I should rest; but Hagios Johannes hath shown me that it might not be; I have taken my vows again to serve my people to live for them; the padre hath promised me that strength shall come." Her lip quivered, but she bore herself bravely.
She fell back on her pillows exhausted by her emotion, while in a low, crooning voice the name she loved to utter broke from her longing lips again, like a threnody: "Figlio dilettissimo!" The Lady Beata's heart was wrung with pity. "Nay, nay, Carinissima," she said, stooping over the couch and speaking with tender decision, "Hagios Johannes could not know what mothers feel!
To this period belong the oldest parts of the deposit at Hagios Onouphrios, and the greater part of the contents of the bee-hive chamber tomb at Hagia Triada, where, along with incised and early painted vases, were found copper daggers with very short triangular blades, a number of rude stone seals, and very primitive idols, rudely imitating the human form.
Johannes the Lesser, this one called himself being truly great and devout of heart, so that his vision was wise and true as that of Hagios Johannes the Greater. A curtain at the further end of the audience-chamber parted to admit a stately figure in mourning-robes, as the Lady Beata of the Bernardini advanced to meet him, bringing the message that the Queen would receive him in an inner cabinet.
For days after the visit of Hagios Johannes, Caterina scarcely spoke, or noticed what was passing around her; and the Lady of the Bernardini and Dama Margherita, with hearts aching from the burden of their pity, were helpless before such desolation.
Hagios Johannes the holy John they called this prior of the House of Priests from Troödos the Mountain of the Holy Cross after the name of the earlier Saint who had made the spot famous for the holiness of his living, for his boundless charity and the wisdom of his judgments, so that the people had gone to him in ceaseless procession with their sins and woes in the days of primitive Christianity in Cyprus, and had returned to their peasant homes the stronger to endure and to renounce.
But to Hagios Johannes all courts were strange; the life of his mountain overflowed with possibilities of ministration which busied all his powers, and it was the first time that he had ever entered any of the palaces of the luxurious Kings of Cyprus of which, perhaps, this summer palace of Potamia was the most sumptuous.
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