CHAPTER IV.
Amalaswintha passed the two days following this midnight interview in asort of real or imagined imprisonment. Whenever she left her chamber,whenever she turned the corner of one of the passages of the palace,she fancied that some one followed or accompanied her, now appearing,now slipping past her, now disappearing, and seemingly as eager towatch all her movements as to avoid her notice. She could not evendescend to the tomb of her son unobserved.
In vain she asked for Witichis or Teja; they had left the city themorning after the coronation, by order of the King.
The feeling that she was alone, surrounded by lurking enemies, filledher mind with vague alarms.
Heavily and darkly the autumn rain-clouds hung over Ravenna, asAmalaswintha rose from her sleepless couch on the morning of the thirdday. It affected her disagreeably when, upon going to the window ofsparry gypsum, a raven rose cawing from the marble sill, and flewslowly over the garden with hoarse cries, heavily flapping its wings.The Princess felt how much her nerves had been tried by the last fewdays of pain, fear, and remorse; for she could not resist the dismalimpression made upon her by the early autumn mists, which rose from thelagoons of the harbour city.
She looked at the grey and marshy landscape with a deep sigh. Her heartwas heavy with care and remorse. Her only hope lay in the thought ofsaving the kingdom at the cost of her own life, by frankly accusing andhumiliating herself before the whole nation. She did not doubt that therelations and blood-avengers of the murdered dukes would strictlyfulfil their duty.
Buried in such reflections, she went through the empty halls andcorridors of the palace--this time, as she believed, unobserved--to theresting-place of her son, in order to confirm herself, with prayer andpenitence, in her pious resolution.
As, after some time had elapsed, she re-ascended from the vault andturned into a gloomy arched passage, a man in the habit of a slavestepped out of a niche--she thought that she had often seen his facebefore--and put into her hand a little wax tablet, immediatelydisappearing into a side passage.
She at once recognised the handwriting of Cassiodorus.
And now she guessed who was the secret messenger. It was Dolios, theletter-carrier of her faithful minister.
Quickly concealing the tablet in her dress, she hastened to herchamber, where she read as follows:
"In pain, but not in anger, I parted from you. I would not that youshould be called away from this world in an impenitent state, and loseyour immortal soul. Fly from the palace, from the city. You know howbitter is the hatred of Gothelindis. Your life is not safe for an hour.Trust no one except my secretary, and at sunset go to the Temple ofVenus in the garden. There you will find my litter, which will bringyou safely to my villa at the Lake of Bolsena. Obey and trust."
Much moved, Amalaswintha pressed the letter to her heart. FaithfulCassiodorus! He had not, then, quite forsaken her. He still feared andcared for her life. And that charming villa upon the lonely island inthe blue Lake of Bolsena! There, many, many years ago, in the fullbloom of youth and beauty, as the guest of Cassiodorus, she had beenwedded to Eutharic, the noble Amelung, and, surrounded by all thesplendour of rank and power, had passed the proudest days of her youth.
She was overcome with an intense longing to see once more the scene ofher greatest happiness.
This feeling powerfully induced her to listen to the warning ofCassiodorus. Still more the fear--not for her life, for she longed todie--but that her enemies would make it impossible for her to warn thenation and save the kingdom.
And, finally, she reflected that the way to Regeta, near Rome, wherethe great National Assembly was shortly--as was usual every autumn--totake place, led past the Lake of Bolsena; and that it was thereforeonly a furthering of her plan, should she start at once in thisdirection.
But, in order to make sure in all cases, so that, even if she neverarrived at the end of her journey, her warning voice might reach theears of the nation, she decided to write a letter to Cassiodorus--whomshe could not be sure of meeting at his villa--in which she wouldentrust him with her confession, and expose to him all the plans of theByzantines and Theodahad.
With closed doors she wrote the painful words. Hot tears of gratitudeand remorse fell upon the parchment; she carefully sealed it, anddelivered it to the most faithful of her slaves, with the strictinjunction to carry it speedily and safely to the monastery atSquillacium in Apulia, the monastical foundation and usual abode ofCassiodorus.
Slowly, slowly passed the dreary hours.
She had grasped the offered hand of her friend with all her heart.Memory and hope vied with each other in painting the island in the lakeas a much-loved asylum. There she hoped to find repose and peace.
She kept carefully within her apartment, in order to give no cause forsuspicion to her spies, or any excuse to detain her.
At last the sun had set.
With light steps, Amalaswintha, forbidding the attendance of her women,and only hiding a few jewels and documents in the folds of her mantle,hurried from her room into the wide colonnade which led to the garden.
She feared to meet here as usual some lurking spy, and to be stopped,and perhaps detained. She frequently looked back, and even glancedcarefully into the niches of the statues--all was empty and quiet, nospy followed her footsteps. Thus, unobserved, she reached the platformof the terrace which united the palace and the garden, and afforded anopen view of the latter.
Amalaswintha examined the nearest path leading to the Temple of Venus.The way was open. Only the faded leaves fell rustling from the tallpines on to the sandy path, where they were whirled about by the wind,which drove the mist and clouds before it in ghostly shapes; it wasvery dismal in the deserted garden, which looked grey and dim in thetwilight.
The Princess shivered. The cold wind tore at her veil and mantle. Shecast a shy glance at the heavy, gloomy mass of stone which she had leftbehind--the building in whose precincts she had ruled so proudly, andfrom which she was now escaping, lonely and fearfully as a criminal.
She thought of her son, who reposed in the vault of the palace. Shethought of her daughter, whom she herself had banished from thesewalls.
For a moment her pain threatened to overpower the forsaken woman; shetottered, and with difficulty supported herself by the broad balustradeof the steps which she was descending. A feverish shudder shook herframe, as the horror of despair shook her soul.
"But my people," she said to herself, "and my atonement---- I must andwill accomplish it."
Strengthened by this thought, she again hurried down the steps, andentered an alley overhung by thick foliage, which led across thegarden, and ended at the Temple of Venus.
She walked rapidly forward, trembling whenever the autumn leaves, witha sighing sound, were swept across her path from a side-walk.
Breathless she arrived at the little temple, and looked searchinglyaround her.
But no litter, no slaves were to be seen; all around was quiet; onlythe branches of the pines creaked in the wind.
All at once the neighing of a horse struck upon her ear.
She turned; around the corner of a wall a man approached with hastysteps.
It was Dolios. He looked sharply about him, and then beckoned to her tocome.
The Princess hastened to follow him round the corner; there stoodCassiodorus's well-known Gallic travelling carriage, the comfortableand elegant _carruca_, closed on all sides with movable latticedshutters of polished wood, and to which were harnessed threeswift-footed Flemish horses.
"We must hasten, Princess," whispered Dolios, as he lifted her into thesoft cushions. "The litter was too slow for the hatred of your enemies.Quiet and speed; so that no one may notice us."
Amalaswintha looked back once more.
Dolios opened the garden-gate and led the horses out. Two men steppedout of the bushes near. One took the driver's seat on the carriage, theother mounted one of two saddle-horses which stood outside the gate.Amalaswintha recog
nised the men as confidential slaves belonging toCassiodorus. Like Dolios, they were provided with weapons.
The latter carefully closed the garden-gate, and let down the shuttersof the carriage. Then he mounted the remaining horse and drew hissword.
"Forward!" he cried.
And the little company galloped away as if Death himself were at theirheels.