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They had journeyed thus for an evening and a long day, with but the needful pauses for rest and refreshment, when they saw before them in the distance, embowered in delicious gardens of palms and cypresses and rich masses of bloom, the domes and minarets of the city of Nikosia slender and white and lace-like against the deep blue sky and climbing the hillside, high above the city, the turrets and crenellated walls of its far-famed citadel.
"It was nearly dark when we started to return; and it was with many a stumble, but never a tumble, that we galloped across the stony plain, and reached the camp about seven p.m. Here we found a silk merchant from Nikosia waiting to see us, with a collection of the soft silks of the country, celebrated since the days of Boccaccio.
An inarticulate murmur of devotion stirred the crowd as he stood for a moment quite silent before them, too overcome by emotion to trust himself to speech. When he spoke, his voice was calm, far-reaching and authoritative. "Citizens of Nikosia," he said, "I bring you black news of perfidy to our Queen and infant King."
I tell you then that the Emperor of Cyprus, by name Isaac, was a thin-faced man with high cheek-bones. A Greek of the Greeks, he undervalued what he had never seen, precisely for that reason. When heralds went up to Nikosia to announce the coming-in of King Richard, Isaac mumbled his lips. 'Prutt! he said, 'I am the Emperor.
"That she may dwell among a loyal people and away from the Council of the Realm which one may not trust." He spoke in tones of bitter wrath, startling the others by his hint of danger. "How 'the Council of the Realm'?" another citizen questioned, astonished and half indignant. "Is not our Seigneur Pietro Davilla one of them?" "Aye he is one but a noble of Nikosia our loyal city.
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.
"The gates of the city will be instantly closed and closely guarded; no man will be allowed to enter who doth not declare for the Queen who is captive in the Fortress of Famagosta." The shock of the news held them dumb while they listened. "The Council of Nikosia will sit at once to discuss measures for her release; the forces of Nikosia and of the citadel will immediately report, fully armed.
He it was, also, who, waiting for no parleying, thundered a refusal to surrender the city to those who brought the demand from the Fortress of Famagosta, signed in trembling letters by the Queen's own hand, "Caterina Regina." "Nay, but Her Majesty shall write the letters from her own palace freely that we, her loyal, servitors may know her will, or ever we surrender her city of Nikosia."
White banners of rejoicing floated from every stronghold and palace throughout Cyprus, to publish the birth of the infant prince; but a hush had lain for many days over the city of Famagosta. In the Cathedral of San Nicolò, the Archbishop of Nikosia, primate of all Cyprus, ministered in solemn state among a throng of lesser dignitaries, priests, and acolytes.
Upon the maxims of this ancient work, faithfully digested in the famous law-schools of Nikosia by their greatest scholars, the present volume of Assizes had been founded; and among those most largely concerned in its authorship was Joan of Iblin the distinguished ancestor of Dama Margherita.
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