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Updated: July 9, 2025
Again the Lady Ecciva laughed lightly, but no shadow of discomposure marred the exquisite outlines of the beautiful, cold face: the skin, delicate and fine as ivory, showed no flush of color: her eyes and tresses were dark as night the eye-brows slender, yet marking a perfect arc the eyes beneath them tantalizing, inscrutable the mouth rosy as that of a child the fingers long, sinuous, emphasizing her speech with movements so unconscious that sometimes they betrayed what her words left unguessed.
"She is the evil genius of the House of Lusignan," Ecciva explained to her excited companion, "all Cyprus knoweth that when the Melusina crieth three times from the towers of the ancient Château of Lusignan, in far France, it meaneth death, or some great misfortune to a ruler of this house." "And thou didst hear this lamentation verily, Ecciva? I should have died from fear!"
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.
"She is not like herself," the Lady Ecciva de Montferrat whispered to her young Venetian companion, Elois
"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!
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. "A confidential communication of deep import to Cyprus so thou come at once, and alone.
The prisoner stood before her judges, when they led her into the Hall of the Assizes, mercifully swathed from head to foot in the filmy silken veil usually worn by the women of Nikosia; but through the snowy folds which concealed the features, there came the gleam of the fantastic jewelled garb, and the lines of the pose proudly defiant were plainly discernible it could be none other than the young and beautiful and high-born Dama Ecciva de Montferrat.
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!
"Dear Madama di Thénouris," she said appealingly, "it seems so much the more ungracious on my part. Yet it is treachery to our Queen. And if it should be that Dama Ecciva hath been receiving these letters and holding such part in these intrigues to leave her where she hath free access to the court-circle. But it cannot be true; she is too young to be so faithless!
For Mutio di Costanzo also, and for the Bernardini, there had been demonstrations, as Dama Ecciva had foretold: but the Lady Margherita de Iblin had noticed with uneasiness, that whereas it was a time when the people, high and low, should have assembled to testify their loyalty and affection, the crowd was chiefly composed of burghers and peasants from the hamlets in city neighborhoods, and that many of the old Cyprian nobles with their tenantry were conspicuously absent.
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