A Struggle for Rome, v. 2

by Felix Dahn

  CHAPTER III.

  Meanwhile King Witichis, in his armed city of Ravenna, displayed allthe arts and activity of an experienced general.

  As, week by week, and day by day, larger or smaller divisions of theGothic troops which had been treacherously sent to the frontiers byTheodahad, returned to the city, the King was unceasingly occupied inarming, training, and regulating the whole army, which was gradually tobe brought to the number of a hundred and fifty thousand.

  For Theodoric's reign had been extremely peaceful; the garrisons of thefrontier provinces had alone seen active service against the Gepidae,Bulgarians, and Avarians; and during a peace of more than thirty yearsthe regulations of the army had become somewhat rusty.

  Therefore the King, supported by his friends and generals, had workenough on his hands.

  The arsenals and docks were emptied; immense magazines were built inthe city, and, between the threefold walls, endless rows of workshopswere erected for smiths and armourers of all kinds, who were obliged tolabour day and night, in order to satisfy the demands of the everincreasing army, and the eager exigence of the King.

  All Ravenna had become a camp.

  Nothing was heard but the hammers of the smiths, the neighing ofhorses, the rattle of arms, and the war-cry of man[oe]uvring troops.

  In this turmoil and restless activity Witichis sought to deaden hisgrief as well as he could, and looked eagerly forward to the day whenhe might lead his brave army to meet the enemy.

  But though his first impulse was to lose himself in the vortex of afierce struggle, he did not forget his duty as King, but sent DukeGuntharis and Hildebad to Belisarius with a proposal of peace on themost moderate conditions.

  His time thus completely claimed by affairs of state, Witichis hadscarcely a thought or look to spare for his Queen, upon whom, as healso imagined, he could bestow no greater favour than the undisturbedenjoyment of liberty.

  But since the fatal marriage feast of Witichis and Mataswintha, at theend of which she had learned in the bridal chamber, from his lips, thathe did not, could never love her, and had but called her wife to savethe nation, Mataswintha had been possessed by a demon: the demon ofinsatiable revenge.

  The most deadly hatred is that of revolted love.

  From her childhood Witichis had been Mataswintha's ideal. Her pride,her hope, and her love were all centred in him; and she had as littledoubted that the sun would rise on the morrow, as that her longing forhim would be satisfied. And now she was forced to confess to herselfthat he had discovered her passion, and did not reciprocate it; andthat, although she was his Queen, her love for him appeared criminal,with regard to his banished wife, who yet alone reigned in his heart.

  He, whom she had looked upon as her destined liberator from unworthybondage, had done her the greatest injury; he had caused her to enterinto a marriage bond without love. He had deprived her of her liberty,and had refused his heart in exchange.

  And wherefore? What had been the cause of this sin? The Gothic kingdom,and the Gothic crown; for, to uphold these, he had not hesitated amoment to blast her whole life.

  "If he had merely failed to reciprocate my love," she said to herself,"I should have been too proud to hate him. But he draws me to him,bestows upon me, as if in mockery, the name of wife, leads me to thevery brink of happiness, and then contemptuously thrusts me down intothe night of unspeakable humiliation! And why all this? For the sake ofan empty sound the Gothic kingdom! For a circlet of gold! Woe to him,and woe to his idol, to which he has sacrificed me! He shall repent it.Without mercy he has destroyed my idol--his own image. Well, then, idolfor idol! He shall live to see his kingdom destroyed, his crown broken.I will shatter his ideal, for whose sake he has sacrificed the bloom ofmy life; and when he stands despairing and wringing his hands beforethe fragments, I will say: See! thus my idol, too, was shattered!"

  So, with the unstable sophistry of passion, Mataswintha accused theunhappy man, who suffered more than herself; who had sacrificed notonly her happiness, but that of his well-beloved wife, to hisfatherland.

  Fatherland!--Gothic kingdom! The words fell chilly upon the ear of thewoman who, from her childhood upward, had connected all her sufferingswith these names.

  She had lived solely absorbed in the egoism of her _one_ feeling, thepoetry of her passionate love, and her whole soul was now possessedwith the desire of revenge for the loss of her happiness. She wishedthat she had the power to destroy the kingdom at one blow.

  But the very madness of her passion endowed her with demoniac cunning.

  She understood how to hide her deadly hatred and her secret thoughts ofrevenge from the King--to hide them as deeply as the love which shestill entertained for him. She was also able to show an interest in theGothic kingdom, which seemed to form the only tie between herself andthe King; and indeed she really took a deep interest in it, although inan inimical sense. For she well knew that she could only injure thekingdom and ruin the King's cause if she were initiated into all itssecrets, and intimately acquainted with its strength and weakness.

  Her high position made it easy for her to learn all that she wished toknow; out of consideration for her powerful party, the knowledge of thesituation of the kingdom and army could not be withheld from thedaughter of the Amelungs. Old Earl Grippa furnished her with all theinformation which he himself possessed. In more important cases she waspresent at the councils which were held in the King's apartments.

  Thus she was perfectly well acquainted with the position of thekingdom; the strength, quality, and divisions of the army; the hopesand fears of the Goths, and the plans of attack formed by the generals.And she longed with impatience for a speedy opportunity of using herknowledge as destructively as possible.

  She could not hope to enter into relations with Belisarius himself,therefore her eyes were naturally directed to the Italians in hervicinity, with whom she could easily and unsuspectedly communicate; andwho, though neutral in the presence of the Goths, were, withoutexception, secretly favourable to the Byzantines.

  But on recalling their names to her memory, she found that there wasnot one to whose wisdom and discretion she could entrust the deadlysecret: that the Queen of the Goths desired the destruction of herkingdom.

  These cowardly and insignificant men--for all the best had long sincejoined Cethegus or Belisarius were neither worthy of trust nor capableof dealing with Witichis and his friends.

  Mataswintha cunningly tried to learn from the King and the Gothsthemselves, which of the Romans they held to be their most dangerousand powerful enemy; but in answer to such questions, she only heard onename, repeated again and again, and he who owned this name was beyondher reach in the Capitol of Rome--Cethegus the Prefect.

  It was impossible for her to enter into communication with him. Shecould trust none of her Roman slaves with such an important mission asthe bearing of a letter to Rome.

  The clever and courageous Numidian, who fully shared the hatred of herbeloved mistress to the rude barbarians, from whom she had alwaysexperienced contempt, had, in truth, offered, with much zeal, to findher way to Cethegus; but Mataswintha would not expose the girl to theperils of a journey through Italy during war-time. Therefore she wasalready reconciled to the thought that she must postpone her revengeuntil the march to Rome. But not the less zealously did she continue toinquire into the plans and stratagems of the Goths.

  One day she was returning from the council of war, which had beenheld in the camp without the walls, in the King's tent; for, sincethe armament had approached its completion, and the Goths had beendaily expecting the order to march, Witichis--partly to avoidMataswintha--had left his rooms in the palace and taken up his abodeamong his warriors.

  The Queen, accompanied only by Aspa, was walking slowly forward,pondering upon what she had just heard. She had avoided the press andnoise of the inner camp, and pursued her way between a marshy arm ofthe river Padus to the left and the rows of white tents to the right.While she wandered on,
noticing nothing, Aspa's sharp eyes werewatching a group of Goths and Italians which surrounded the platform ofa conjurer, who appeared, from the astonishment and laughter of thespectators, to be performing new and marvellous tricks.

  Aspa lingered a little to see something of these wonders. The conjurerwas a slender youth, a Celt, to judge by the dazzling white skin of hisface and bare arms, and by his long yellow hair; but this suppositionwas belied by his coal-black eyes. And he really performed wonders inthe eyes of his simple audience. Now he sprang up, turned over and overin the air, and fell, now on his hands, now on his feet. Then he seemedto devour glowing coals with great appetite, and in their place, tospit out coins; then he swallowed a dagger a foot long and afterwardsdrew it out of the back of his head, throwing it up in the air togetherwith three or four others, and catching them in turn by the handle, tothe great enjoyment of the spectators, who rewarded him with laughterand cries of admiration.

  But Aspa had already lingered too long.

  She looked after her mistress, and observed that her path wasintercepted by a troop of Italian carriers and livery-servants, whoevidently had not recognised the Queen, and who passed straight beforeher on their way to the river, joking and making a great disturbance.They appeared to be pointing and throwing stones at some object whichAspa could not distinguish.

  She was just about to hurry after her mistress, when the conjurer uponthe platform near her suddenly uttered a shrill cry. Aspa turned inaffright, and saw the youth take an immense leap over the heads of thespectators, and rush at the Italians.

  He was already in their midst, and, bending down, disappeared for amoment.

  But he quickly rose to his feet, and one and then another of theItalians fell prone under his blows.

  In a moment Aspa stood at the Queen's side, who had quietly withdrawnfrom the turmoil, but, to her surprise, stopped short at a littledistance, pointing at the group with her finger.

  And indeed the sight was a strange one.

  With incredible strength and still greater agility the conjurer heldhis assailants off. Springing at his adversaries, turning and bending,retreating and then suddenly darting forward to pull the nearest downby his foot, or to overthrow him with a powerful blow, he defendedhimself bravely, and that without any weapon, with his right handalone; for in the left he held something close to his breast, as ifhiding and protecting it.

  This unequal combat lasted several minutes.

  The conjurer was pushed nearer and nearer to the water by the angry andnoisy crowd. Suddenly a naked blade glittered. One of the liveryservants, enraged at receiving a severe blow, drew his knife and sprangat the conjurer from behind. With a cry the latter fell; his enemiesrushed upon him.

  "Help! drag them away! help the poor man!" cried Mataswintha to thesoldiers, who now approached from the forsaken platform; "I, yourQueen, command you!"

  The Goths hurried to the knot of struggling men; but before they couldreach them, the conjurer, who had broken from his adversaries, sprangout of the tumbling group, and, with a last effort, darted straight offin the direction of the two women--followed by the Italians.

  What a sight!

  The Gallic tunic of the poor conjurer hung in rags from his body; hisfalse yellow hair was torn off his head, and beneath appeared locks ofglossy black; the white hue of his neck ended in a chest the colour ofbronze.

  With a last exertion of strength he reached the women, and recognisedMataswintha.

  "Protect me, save me, white goddess!" he cried, and fell at her feet.

  The Italians had already reached him, and the nearest raised his knife.

  But Mataswintha spread her blue mantle over the fallen man.

  "Back!" she cried with majesty. "Leave him. He is under the protectionof the Queen of the Goths!"

  The livery-servants fell back abashed.

  "Indeed!" at last said the one with the dagger, "is this dog and son ofa dog to go unpunished? and five of us lie half dead on the ground, andI have three teeth too few? Is there to be no punishment?"

  "He is punished enough," said Mataswintha, pointing to the deep gash onthe neck of the conjurer.

  "And all this fuss about a worm!" cried another. "About a snake thatescaped from his knapsack, which we tried to kill with stones."

  "See, he has hidden the viper in his bosom. Take it from him!"

  "Kill him!" screamed the others.

  But now a number of soldiers came up, and procured respect for theirQueen, pushing back the Italians, and forming a circle round thewounded man.

  Aspa looked at the latter attentively, and suddenly cast herself downbeside him, crossing her arms on her bosom.

  "What is the matter, Aspa? Rise!" said her mistress, much astonished.

  "Oh, mistress!" stammered Aspa, "the man is no Gaul! He is one of mypeople. He prays to the Snake-God. Look at his brown skin--as brown asAspa's! And here--here is writing; letters are tattooed upon hisbreast; the sacred hieroglyphics of my country!" she cried withdelight.

  And, pointing with her finger, she began to read.

  "Why this disguise?" asked Mataswintha. "It is suspicious. He must bearrested."

  "No, no, mistress," whispered Aspa; "dost thou know what these lettersmean? No other eye than mine can decipher them for thee."

  "Well?" asked Mataswintha.

  "They say," whispered Aspa, "Syphax owes a life to his master, Cethegusthe Prefect.' Yes, yes, I know him; it is Syphax, the son of Hiempsal,a friend of my family. The gods have sent him to us."

  "Yes, Aspa," said Mataswintha, "the gods have sent him: the gods ofrevenge! Goths, lay this wounded man upon a bier, and follow my slaveto the palace. Henceforward he shall be employed in my service."