A Struggle For Rome Volume Ii Part 44

He, whom she had looked upon as her destined liberator from unworthy bondage, had done her the greatest injury; he had caused her to enter into 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 a moment 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 the very brink of happiness, and then contemptuously thrusts me down into the night of unspeakable humiliation! And why all this? For the sake of an 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, idol for 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 of my life; and when he stands despairing and wringing his hands before the fragments, I will say: See! thus my idol, too, was shattered!"

So, with the unstable sophistry of pa.s.sion, Mataswintha accused the unhappy man, who suffered more than herself; who had sacrificed not only her happiness, but that of his well-beloved wife, to his fatherland.

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

She had lived solely absorbed in the egoism of her _one_ feeling, the poetry of her pa.s.sionate love, and her whole soul was now possessed with the desire of revenge for the loss of her happiness. She wished that she had the power to destroy the kingdom at one blow.

But the very madness of her pa.s.sion endowed her with demoniac cunning.

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

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

Thus she was perfectly well acquainted with the position of the kingdom; the strength, quality, and divisions of the army; the hopes and fears of the Goths, and the plans of attack formed by the generals.

And she longed with impatience for a speedy opportunity of using her knowledge 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 her vicinity, with whom she could easily and unsuspectedly communicate; and who, though neutral in the presence of the Goths, were, without exception, secretly favourable to the Byzantines.

But on recalling their names to her memory, she found that there was not one to whose wisdom and discretion she could entrust the deadly secret: that the Queen of the Goths desired the destruction of her kingdom.

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

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

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

The clever and courageous Numidian, who fully shared the hatred of her beloved mistress to the rude barbarians, from whom she had always experienced contempt, had, in truth, offered, with much zeal, to find her way to Cethegus; but Mataswintha would not expose the girl to the perils of a journey through Italy during war-time. Therefore she was already reconciled to the thought that she must postpone her revenge until the march to Rome. But not the less zealously did she continue to inquire into the plans and stratagems of the Goths.

One day she was returning from the council of war, which had been held in the camp without the walls, in the King's tent; for, since the armament had approached its completion, and the Goths had been daily expecting the order to march, Witichis--partly to avoid Mataswintha--had left his rooms in the palace and taken up his abode among his warriors.

The Queen, accompanied only by Aspa, was walking slowly forward, pondering upon what she had just heard. She had avoided the press and noise of the inner camp, and pursued her way between a marshy arm of the river Padus to the left and the rows of white tents to the right.

While she wandered on, noticing nothing, Aspa's sharp eyes were watching a group of Goths and Italians which surrounded the platform of a conjurer, who appeared, from the astonishment and laughter of the spectators, to be performing new and marvellous tricks.

Aspa lingered a little to see something of these wonders. The conjurer was a slender youth, a Celt, to judge by the dazzling white skin of his face and bare arms, and by his long yellow hair; but this supposition was belied by his coal-black eyes. And he really performed wonders in the eyes of his simple audience. Now he sprang up, turned over and over in the air, and fell, now on his hands, now on his feet. Then he seemed to devour glowing coals with great appet.i.te, and in their place, to spit out coins; then he swallowed a dagger a foot long and afterwards drew it out of the back of his head, throwing it up in the air together with three or four others, and catching them in turn by the handle, to the great enjoyment of the spectators, who rewarded him with laughter and cries of admiration.

But Aspa had already lingered too long.

She looked after her mistress, and observed that her path was intercepted by a troop of Italian carriers and livery-servants, who evidently had not recognised the Queen, and who pa.s.sed straight before her on their way to the river, joking and making a great disturbance.

They appeared to be pointing and throwing stones at some object which Aspa could not distinguish.

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

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

But he quickly rose to his feet, and one and then another of the Italians fell p.r.o.ne under his blows.

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

And indeed the sight was a strange one.

With incredible strength and still greater agility the conjurer held his a.s.sailants off. Springing at his adversaries, turning and bending, retreating and then suddenly darting forward to pull the nearest down by his foot, or to overthrow him with a powerful blow, he defended himself bravely, and that without any weapon, with his right hand alone; for in the left he held something close to his breast, as if hiding and protecting it.

This unequal combat lasted several minutes.

The conjurer was pushed nearer and nearer to the water by the angry and noisy crowd. Suddenly a naked blade glittered. One of the livery servants, enraged at receiving a severe blow, drew his knife and sprang at the conjurer from behind. With a cry the latter fell; his enemies rushed upon him.

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

The Goths hurried to the knot of struggling men; but before they could reach them, the conjurer, who had broken from his adversaries, sprang out of the tumbling group, and, with a last effort, darted straight off in 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; his false yellow hair was torn off his head, and beneath appeared locks of glossy black; the white hue of his neck ended in a chest the colour of bronze.

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

"Protect me, save me, white G.o.ddess!" 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 protection of 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 of a dog to go unpunished? and five of us lie half dead on the ground, and I have three teeth too few? Is there to be no punishment?"

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

"And all this fuss about a worm!" cried another. "About a snake that escaped 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 their Queen, pushing back the Italians, and forming a circle round the wounded man.

Aspa looked at the latter attentively, and suddenly cast herself down beside 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 my people. He prays to the Snake-G.o.d. Look at his brown skin--as brown as Aspa's! And here--here is writing; letters are tattooed upon his breast; the sacred hieroglyphics of my country!" she cried with delight.