United States or Liechtenstein ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Caterina was the first to recover her composure; she made a pathetic effort to steady her voice as she spoke. "Margherita, I must know at once what this meaneth. If one of the Council would come to me there is always one in the Castle my Uncle Andrea or the Councillor Zaffo I would they had not sent Aluisi and the Zia back to the palace! and and I will go to the Boy."
Such honors as might be decreed to a fidelity beyond reward had come upon Aluisi Bernardini from the Republic, apt in recognition: and the undying gratitude of the Queen was already his. "What shall I give thee, beloved Cousin?" the Queen had asked him. "Wilt thou be a noble of Cyprus?" "Dear Lady," he answered, "I want but thy favor. Doth it not suffice me that I am a noble of Venice?"
"Nay, Aluisi," she answered, earnestly, "thou art in league with the King it was his very answer." "It is but truth, in league with truth, most gracious Majesty," he retorted playfully. "Nay but no league at all; only two liege men speaking truth; therefore the oneness of speech."
"As thou? who dost so qualify thyself?" she asked with a pitiful attempt to rally him for her heart was sore. "What shall I do without thee Aluisi!" Her voice had suddenly broken in yearning. It was not often that such emotion escaped her.
And she hath never spoken of the many fiefs from which they came not withheld by command of their jealous nobles. This peasantry hath no initiative no aggressiveness. How wouldst thou that they should save her when danger cometh?" "What danger, Aluisi?" "The ever-present danger from without and within," he answered despondently. "One knoweth not from whence the first blow shall come."
"Aluisi," she said gravely, "my Uncle Andrea hath been more than kind as to a child who asketh only baubles: but, truly, he will not see that one may not rest content to be always a child: he thinketh, perchance, that for women there is no duty but to move regally in the midst of a splendor where he would verily pour out his fortune.
Aluisi advisedly used the ceremonious form by which he was accustomed to address the Queen in public, hoping to hint to her of some necessary preparation to control the meeting of the Council that could not, in any event, be long deferred.
Nay, Aluisi my cousin" as she noted his start of surprise "to thee alone who must be my counsellor in days of desolation pray Heaven more dark than thou shalt ever dream of I will confide that out of this night of vigil hath come this resolution which I dare not break. Seek thou the man."
He had employed the stilted fooling of the period to cover his confusion and to gain time; for the matter was of moment and it had taken him unaware he did not know how to answer her. "Nay, nay, Aluisi I am distressed; there is some great trouble; I command thy knowledge." He had never heard her use the word before, and it became her well.
I remember some rumor in the Broglio, before this matter of Cyprus came uppermost, that the houses would have been allied a marriage between the little Caterina and the cousin Aluisi a dispensation to be gotten from His Holiness. It would have been well for the estates and the Casa Cornaro."
Word Of The Day