CHAPTER XXX.
The house of Phranza was rather a series of houses built about a square court, in which were parterres of rarest plants, divided from each other by walks of variegated marble, and moistened by the spray of fountains.
Morsinia's palanquin was let down just within the gateway. A young woman assisted her to alight, and conducted her to apartments elegantly furnished with all that could please a woman's eye, though she were the reigning beauty of a court, instead of one brought up as a peasant in a distant province, and largely ignorant of the arts of the toilet. She was bewildered with the strangeness of her surroundings, and sat down speechless upon the cushion to gaze about her. Was she herself? It required the remembrance that Constantine was somewhere near her to enable her to realize her own identity, and that she had not been changed by some fairy's wand into a real princess.
"Will my lady rest?" said the attendant, in softest Greek.
Morsinia was familiar with this language, which was used more or less everywhere in Servia and Albania; but she had never heard it spoken with such sweetness. The words would have been restful to hear, though she had not understood their meaning. Without hesitation she resigned herself to the hands of the servant, who relieved her of her outer apparel. Another maiden brought a tray of delicate wafers of wheat, and flasks of light wine, with figs and dates. A curtain in the wall, being drawn, exposed the bath; a great basin of mottled marble, and a little fountain scattering a spray scented with roses.
Morsinia began to fear that she had been mistaken for some great lady, whose wardrobe was expected to be brought in massive chests, and whose personal ornaments would rival the toilet treasures of the Queen of Sheba. There entered opportunely several tire-women, laden with silks and linens, laces and shawls, every portion of female attire, in every variety of color and shape—from the strong buskin to the gauze veil so light that it will hide from the eye less than it reveals to the imagination.
The guest was about to question her attendants, when one gave her a note, hastily written by Constantine, and simply saying—
"Be surprised at nothing." Phranza had expressed to Constantine the deep interest of the emperor in the career of Scanderbeg, and his plans for Morsinia.
"Scanderbeg," said he, "is the one hero of our degenerate age; the only arm not beaten nerveless by the blows of the Turk. I have asked nothing concerning yourself, my young man; nor need I know more than that such a chieftain is interested in you and your charge. Your great captain informs me (reading from a letter), that any service we may render you here will be counted as service to Albania; and that any favor we may bestow upon the lady will be as if shown to his own child. Is she of any kin to him?"
"I may not speak of that," replied the youth, "except to tell that her blood is noble, and that General Castriot has made her safety his care. An Albanian needs but to know that this is the will of our loving and wise chieftain, to defend Morsinia with his life."
"You speak her name with familiarity," said Phranza.
"It is the custom of our people," replied Constantine, coloring. "The trials of our country have thrown nobles and peasants into more intimate relations than would perhaps be allowed in a settled condition. This, too, may have influenced General Castriot in sending her here, where her life may be more suitable to her gentle blood."
"It is enough!" exclaimed Phranza. "If our distance from Albania, and our own pressing difficulties and dangers do not allow us to send aid to your hero, we can show him our respect and gratitude by treating her, whom he would have as his child, as if she were our own. And now for yourself—well! you shall have what, if I mistake you not, your discreet mind and lusty muscles most crave—an opportunity 'to win your spurs,' as the western knights would say. Events are thickening into a crash, the out-come of which no one can foresee, except that the Moslem or the Christian shall hold all from the Euxine to the Adriatic. This double empire cannot long exist. Scanderbeg's arms alone are keeping the Sultan from trying again the strength of our walls. A disaster there; an assault here! You serve the one cause whether here or there."
"I give my fealty to the emperor as I would to my general," replied the young man warmly.
Constantine found himself arrayed before night in the costume of a subaltern officer of the imperial guard, and assigned to quarters at the barracks in the section of the city near to the house of the chamberlain. His brief training under the eye of Castriot, and his hazardous service, had developed his great natural talent for soldiership into marvellous acquirements for one of his years. With the foils, in the saddle, in mastery of tactics, in engineering ability displayed at the walls—which were being constantly strengthened—he soon took rank with the most promising. By courtesy of the chamberlain he was allowed the freest communication with Morsinia, and was often the guest of her host; especially upon excursions of pleasure up the Golden Horn to the "Sweet Waters," along the western shore of the Bosphorus, to the Princess Island, and such other spots on the sea of Marmora as were uninfested by piratical Turks.
Morsinia became the favorite not only of the wife of Phranza, but of the ladies of the court, and the object of especial devotion on the part of the nobles and officers of the emperor's suite.
But it would have required more saintliness of female disposition than was ever found in the court of a Byzantine emperor, to have smothered the fires of jealousy, when, at a banquet given at the palace, Morsinia was placed at the emperor's right hand. It might not be just to Phranza to say that to his suggestion was due the praise of Morsinia's beauty and queenly bearing, which the emperor overheard from many of the courtiers' lips. Perhaps the charms of her person forced this spontaneous commendation from them: as it was asserted by some of the more elderly of the ladies—whom long study had made proficient in the art of reading kings' hearts from their faces, that the monarch found an Esther in the Albanian.
The reigning beauty at the court of Constantine Palælogus at this time was the daughter of a Genoese admiral. Though not reputed for amiability, she won the friendship of Morsinia by many delicate attentions. Gifts of articles of dress, ornaments and such souvenirs as only one woman can select for another, seemed to mark her increasing attachment. A box of ebony, richly inlaid with mother of pearl, and filled with delicious confections, was one day the offering upon the shrine of her sisterly regard. The wife of Phranza, in whose presence the box was opened, on learning the name of the donor, besought Morsinia not to taste the contents; and giving a candied fig to a pet ape, the brute sickened and died before the night.
An event contributed to the rumors which associated the name of the fair Albanian with the special favors of the emperor. An embassage from the Doge of Venice had brightened the harbor with their galleys. A gondola sheathed in silver, floated upon the waters of the Golden Horn, like a white swan, and was moored at the foot of the palace garden—the gift of the Doge. Another, its counterpart, was in the harbor of Venice—the possession of the daughter of the Doge; but waiting to join its companion, if the imperial heart could be persuaded to accept with it the person of its princely owner. Better than the ideal marriage of Venice with the sea—the ceremony of which was annually observed—would be the marriage of the two seas, the Adriatic and the Ægean; and the reunion of their families of confluent waters under the double banner of St. Mark and Byzantium. But the Grand Duke Lucas Notaris, who was also grand admiral of the empire, declared openly that he would sooner hold alliance with the Turk than with a power representing that schismatic Latin Church. The hereditary nobles protested against such a menace to social order as, in their estimate, a recognition of a republic like Venice would be. But it was believed that more potent in its influence over the emperor than these outcries, was the whisper of Phranza that the silver gondola of Venice was fairer than its possessor; and that queenly beauty awaited elsewhere the imperial embrace.
No habitué of the court knew less of this gossip than Morsinia herself; nor did she suspect any unusual attention paid her by the emperor to be other than an expression of regard for Castriot, whose ward she was known to be. Or if, when they were alone, his manner betrayed a fondness, she attributed it to his natural kindliness of disposition, or to that desire for recreation which persons in middle life, burdened with cares, find in the society of the young and beautiful; for no purpose of modesty could hide from Morsinia the knowledge which her mirror revealed. She had, too, the highest respect for the piety of the emperor; the deepest sympathy with him in his distress for the evils which were swarming about his realm; and a true admiration for the courage of heart with which he bore up against them. It was therefore with a commingling of religious, patriotic, and personal interest that she gave herself up to his entertainment whenever he sought her society. That she might understand him the better, and be able to converse with him, she learned from Phranza much of the history of recent movements, both without and within the empire. So expert had she become in these matters that the chamberlain playfully called her his prime minister.