A Struggle For Rome Volume Ii Part 42

While Guntharis first led the King through his lines of troops, and called upon them at once to do him homage, which they did with joy, and afterwards Witichis took the Wolfung and his leaders with him into his camp, where the victory so peacefully gained was looked upon as miraculous, Arahad collected together a small troop of about a hundred hors.e.m.e.n, who were faithfully attached to him, and galloped back with them to his camp.

He soon reached the tent of Mataswintha, who indignantly rose at his entrance.

"Be not angry. Princess. This time thou hast no right to be so. Arahad comes to fulfil his last duty. Fly! thou must follow me!" And, in the impetuosity of his excitement, he grasped her small white hand.

Mataswintha receded a step, and laid her hand upon the broad golden girdle which confined her white under-garment.

"Fly?" she asked. "Fly whither?"

"Over the sea! over the Alps! Anywhere for liberty; for thy liberty is endangered."

"Only by thee!"

"By me no longer; and I can protect thee no more. So long as only my happiness was at stake, I could be cruel to myself and honour thy will.

But now----"

"But now?" repeated Mataswintha, turning pale.

"They intend thee for another. My brother, the army, and our enemies in Ravenna and the opposite camp, are all agreed. Soon a thousand voices will call thee, the victim, to the bridal altar. I cannot bear to think of it! Such a soul, such beauty, a sacrifice to an unloved marriage bond!"

"Let them come!" said Mataswintha. "We will see if they can force me!"

And she pressed the dagger which she carried in her girdle to her heart. "Who is the new despot who threatens me?"

"Do not ask!" cried Arahad. "Thy enemy, who is not worthy of thee; who does not love thee; he--but follow me--fly! They already approach!"

Horses' hoofs were heard outside.

"I remain! Who can force the will of the grandchild of Theodoric?"

"No; thou shalt not, must not, fall into the hands of those heartless men, who value neither thee nor thy beauty, but only thy right to the crown. Follow me----"

At this moment the curtain at the entrance of the tent was pushed aside. Earl Teja entered. Two Gothic boys, dressed in festive garments of white silk, followed him; they bore a purple cus.h.i.+on, covered with a veil.

Teja advanced to the middle of the tent, and kneeled before Mataswintha. He, like the boys, wore a green spray of rue round his helmet. But his eyes and brow were gloomy, as he said:

"I greet thee. Queen of the Goths and Italians!"

Mataswintha looked at him amazed.

Teja rose, went up to the boys, took a golden circlet and a green wreath of rue from the cus.h.i.+on, and said:

"I give thee the bridal wreath and the crown, Mataswintha, and invite thee to the wedding and coronation; the litter awaits thee."

Arahad laid his hand on his sword.

"Who sends thee?" asked Mataswintha, with a beating heart, but her hand upon her dagger.

"Who but Witichis, the King of the Goths?"

On hearing this a ray of ineffable joy shone from Mataswintha's beautiful eyes. She raised both hands to heaven and cried:

"Thanks, O heaven! Thy stars and my true heart are not belied. I knew it!"

She took the coronet into her white hands and pressed it firmly upon her golden hair.

"I am ready," she said. "Lead me to thy master and mine."

And she majestically held out her hand to Earl Teja, who reverently led her out of the tent.

But Arahad looked after her in speechless wonder as she disappeared, his hand still upon his sword.

He was roused by the entrance of Eurich, one of his followers, who came up to him, and laying his hand upon his shoulder, asked:

"What now? The horses stand and wait. Whither?"

"Whither?" exclaimed Arahad, starting; "whither? There is only one way, and that we will take. To the Byzantines and death!"

CHAPTER II.

In the peaceful light of late afternoon shone the chapel and convent which Valerius had built in order to release his daughter from the service of the Church. It was situated at the foot of the Apennines, to the northeast of Perusia and Asisum, and to the south of Petra and Eugubium, upon a rocky precipice above the little town of Taginae.

The cloister, built of the dark red stone of the neighbourhood, enclosed in its quadrangle a quiet garden, green with shrubberies.

A cool arched pa.s.sage ran round all its four sides, decorated in the grave Byzantine style, with statues of the apostles, mosaics, and frescoes on a golden background.

This ornamentation consisted in symbolic pictures from the sacred writings, especially from the Revelations of St. John, the favourite Gospel of that time.

Solemn stillness reigned over the place. Life seemed excluded from within these high and strong walls.

Cypresses and arbor-vitae predominated in the groups of trees in the garden, where the song of a bird was never heard. The strict conventual order suffered no bird, lest the sweet song of the nightingale might disturb the pious souls in their devotions.

It was Ca.s.siodorus who, already inclined to a severe monastic rule when minister of Theodoric, and full of Biblical learning, had sketched for his friend Valerius the plan for the outer and inner government of this convent--similar to the rules of the monastery which he himself had founded at Squillacium--and had watched over its execution. His pious but severe mind, so alienated from the flesh and the world, was expressed in the smallest details.

The twenty widows and maidens who lived here as nuns pa.s.sed their days in prayer and psalm-singing, chastis.e.m.e.nt and penitence, and also in works of Christian charity; for they visited the sick and the poor of the neighbourhood, comforting and nursing body and soul.

It made a solemn, poetical, but very sad impression upon the beholder when one of these pious nuns came walking through the dark avenue of cypresses, clad in a flowing dark-grey garment, which trailed on the ground, and a white close-fitting kalantika upon her head, a costume which Christendom had received from the Egyptian priests of Isis.

Before every cross of the many which were cut in the box-trees the nuns stood still and folded their hands in adoration. They always walked alone, and dumb as shadows they glided past each other when they chanced to meet; for communication was reduced to the absolutely necessary.

In the middle of the garden a spring flowed from beneath a dark-coloured rock, surrounded by cypresses; marble seats were fixed in the rock.

It was a retired, lovely spot; wild roses formed a sort of arbour, and almost entirely concealed a rough bas-relief sculptured in the rock, representing the martyrdom of St. Stephen.

Near this spring sat, eagerly reading in a roll of papyrus, a beautiful maiden, clad in a snow-white garment, held up on the left shoulder by a golden clasp. A spray of ivy was twined in the dark brown hair, which flowed back from the brow in soft waves. It was Valeria.

When the columns of her home at Neapolis had been overthrown, she had found an asylum within these strong walls. She had become paler and graver in this lonely dwelling, but her eyes still beamed with all their former beauty.