It was like a pall upon them all to see their young mistress, usually so gracious and responsive, wholly absorbed in her troubled revery; but to-day her maidens played their sweetest strains upon their silvery lutes, without her answering smile; the gentlemen of her court sought in vain for some diversion to distract her; even the Lady Margherita could do nothing for her pleasure, while she watched in unobtrusive tenderness, feeling that quiet, however unsatisfying, was more welcome than speech.
The pages, at a sign from the Lady Margherita, had dipped their fronds of feather in the great vases of mountain-snow that stood between the columns, and waved them about the chamber; the queen followed their movements with a fleeting smile as this breath of coolness reached her, then fixed her eyes again, with a despairing look, upon the distant forest.
"She wearieth for the King," her maidens said low to each other, "and verily he may come to-night, for the days have already numbered more than he giveth of wont to the chase."
"She is not like herself," the Lady Ecciva de Montferrat whispered to her young Venetian companion, Eloisà Contarini, as the company strolled out upon the terraces at a sign from the Lady Beata Bernardini whose loving motherly eyes saw that Caterina needed rest and solitude. "She is strange and pale to-day—like one who hath seen a vision." Lady Ecciva spoke with deep seriousness, for superstition was a vital part of the Cyprian nature, belonging alike to peasant and noble.
"How meanest thou—a vision?" Eloisà questioned, startled.
The other turned to see that they were not followed and answered in an awe-struck tone: "The vision of the Melusina—the fate of the Lusignans! Didst thou not hear her shriek from the Castle of Lusignan in the dead of night?"
"The Melusina? Ecciva, who is the 'Melusina?'"
"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!"
"Yea, thou being from Venice—not knowing that it bodeth not harm for thee—it is misfortune only for some ruler of their house of Lusignan."