But, for all that, it was the People's Day—for the young Queen had willed it so.
"Let proclamation be made throughout the land," she had said, "that all, of every degree, may share the festivities, and come to pay their homage to the infant King. And bid the mothers bring their little ones."
The people thronged from far and near until Famagosta could hold no more; from Nikosia, from Larnaca and Limasol and Kerynea and other cities and districts of Cyprus, came great deputations of burghers, with those peasants from the nearer casals and hamlets whom the invitation of their gracious Sovereign Lady had reached and who were not restrained by the unwillingness of their nobles: for there were still some among the ancient families of the island who looked with disfavor upon Janus and his successors.
The Queen had not shown herself to the people since the birth of her little son; and they knelt along her pathway as she passed across the Piazza San Nicolò, from the palace to the Duomo, holding their children up that she might bless them—for it was a miracle! She had come back from Death's door to rule and bless their land!
"Sancta Maria!"
Before her on the golden cushion of state were borne the sceptre and the quaint Royal Crown of Cyprus of the time of their first king, Guy de Lusignan—heavy and far too rough for her delicate brows to endure; and the Councillors and Counts of the kingdom, the knights and nobles and ladies of the court made a brave array. But the people,—the peasants,—half-dazed by their unaccustomed nearness to such magnificence, not feeling as did the people of Venice that the fêtes of the kingdom were meant for them, had looked on stolidly at all the bravery of the passing procession and at the glitter of the insignia,—showing no sign of greeting until a white, girlish figure stood under the palace portal.
"Panagia mou! Holy Virgin!" The familiar ejaculation came, half-suppressed, in a whisper of awe, from hundreds of voices. For the words of the Cyprian peasant were few, and this appeal to their most revered image of the Virgin sufficed for the expression of their deepest emotions. Was it, in truth their Queen—or the blessed Madonna herself, who came forth from the palace arches in her sweeping robes, white and gleaming, her royal mantle of cloth of gold and her jewelled crown—like the beautiful ivory image in the Duomo of Santa Croce?—Very pale and fair and sad she was, yet with a smile in her eyes, as she turned from side to side to answer their greetings, which now broke forth rapturously.
The color flushed her pale face when their cries of loyalty arose, and she turned and took the little Prince of Galilee from her Eccellenza, the Royal Governess the Dama Margherita de Iblin, holding him high, close-pressed to her cheek for all the people to see, with a great glory of mother-love in her shining eyes. They rent the air with their sobs and shouts.
The child lay smiling on his mother's arm—serene and very beautiful; it was in truth a holy picture.
The populace forgot that it was their Queen; as never before, that any distance of caste lay between them—they forgot their native awkwardness and dread of the great ones—they thronged nearer, unafraid—only to touch her—to kiss some hem of her floating garments—to look in the face of the little child who was to be their King!