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Updated: June 19, 2025
Rizzo and Fabrici had been absent at the time of the uprising of the citizens of Famagosta, and the wolf-like courage of the Chief-of-Council was on the wane: for the letters of the Queen had not proved the passport he had expected toward the surrender of the Cyprian strongholds to a traitor: since more than one of the Commanders had been found so staunch in loyalty as to question the validity of the royal signature.
'Let her take the Prince of Naples, he hath said openly before the Councillors, 'and give us a man to reign over us." "And Janus but two weeks dead!" The Lady Beata gave an involuntary cry of horror. "But Fabrici, the Archbishop?" she asked after a moment, "may he not influence them to be more gentle with her having a brother in the Council?" Aluisi shook his head sorrowfully.
Fabrici also spoke against it." "It is strange: but they gave no reason?" "They gave a reason one of their own making: that there was a matter of more moment before the Council; that the Queen's pleasure might wait." "Aluisi! What saidst thou?"
Fabrici was known to be in sympathy with Naples; Rizzo, Chief of Council, strong, domineering, unscrupulous, was perhaps the creature of Ferdinand, King of Naples. "It shall be done," he said again, having vowed to help her.
"But the Archbishop Fabrici cannot hold malice against Caterina. He hath all the church of Cyprus in his command; he must be friendly to the Queen." But Aluisi's face gave her no hope, as she turned to him.
For it had been learned in that innermost Council, and told no farther than was needful, that Ferdinand of Naples was intriguing to draw Janus into an alliance with a princess of his house; it was also known, by that singular penetration in which Venice had no equal, that the new Archbishop of Nicosia, Alvise Fabrici, was an agent for Ferdinand, secretly working to further his ends in Cyprus; and finally in sign of the willingness of Janus to break faith with Venice, came the rumor of some coldness toward Andrea Cornaro, who had hitherto been his fast friend.
The Queen turned from one pitiless face to the other and knew that there was no hope for her. "My God, I shall go mad!" she moaned, as she seized the pen with trembling fingers, unconscious that she had spoken: then in a last, desperate appeal, she cried to Fabrici: "Most Reverend Father, by your hopes of Heaven, I implore you give me my boy again! il mio dilettissimo figlio!
See, I sign the parchment!" and with feverish strokes she wrote her name; then with hands strained tightly together, awaited her answer. Fabrici moved uncomfortably, turning his gaze away from the stricken, overwrought face: his cruel triumph began to seem unworthy.
Alvigi Fabrici, the tool of Ferdinand, would have liked to follow her and see the panting vision of her face, when she reached the cradle of her child and found him gone. But there was already silence in the corridor: no faintest echo of flying feet no vaguest rustle of fluttering robes a moment had sufficed for the mother's startled quest. It was dawn after that night of tragedy.
Those men of Venice of the Queen's household, who would most strenuously have resisted them, had been quieted forever, it was true; but, as dawn lightened over the ghastly faces upturned beneath the windows of the poor young Queen, an unconfessed tremor stole into the doughty breasts of Rizzo and Fabrici, in the place where most men wear their hearts, and they got them together, in friendly converse, to ponder what should come next.
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