Guarded by her faithful Gepidæ, Rosamund and her accomplices reached
Ravenna in safety with the treasure they had carried away with them.
There they placed themselves under the protection of Longinus, exarch
or viceroy of the Eastern emperor. They had not been there long when
Longinus, having fallen desperately in love with the fair widow, or
with the wealth of which she was possessed, asked Rosamund to marry
him, and she at once consented on condition that the viceroy freed her
from Helmigis, to whom she was already bound. Longinus gave her a cup
of wine mixed with a deadly poison, telling her to give it to Helmigis
the next time he complained of thirst. This she did. Her victim drained
half the goblet at a draught. The poison was so strong that he
immediately felt he was doomed, and drawing his sword, forced her to
finish what he had left. Thus the murderers died, and their great
treasure fell into the hands of the Roman viceroy. But the story tells
us that wealth did not make him happy, and that it was the ultimate
cause of his death.
We have still to learn what became of Peredeus, the giant. He was so
used to deeds of violence that he thought the murder of Alboin a mere
nothing. Placing himself at the head of a band of Gepidæ, he set out
for Constantinople and offered his services to the emperor. His great
strength gained him a high position at court, and raised him in his
master’s favour. As time went on he became discontented with the
treatment he received, thinking it hardly consistent with the gratitude
he deserved for his manifold services. Some of his angry words were
repeated to his master, who determined to make him powerless to hurt
the throne. One night, when Peredeus was snoring off the effects of a
drunken orgy, a number of men crept into his room, chained him hand and
foot, and put out his eyes. His howls of pain were so terrible that
they made all in the palace and neighbourhood tremble.
The blind giant showed himself quiet and obedient, so that his guards
ceased to fear him, but still they never took off his chains until one
evening he begged to be allowed to wrestle before the emperor,
maintaining that his strength was unabated. He was led into the great
hall, and there, amid the general applause, proved himself as mighty an
athlete as he had ever been. Suddenly he heard the emperor’s voice, and
dashing in that direction, plunged a knife he had concealed about his
person into the hearts of two great officials of the court, whom he
mistook for the emperor. A few minutes more and he had fallen under the
spears of the body-guard.
So, one by one, the murderers of Alboin all came to a violent end, and
the Langobards, for want of their leader, failed to gain full
possession of the fair southern land they had come to regard as their
own.
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Occasionally their power was revived for a time by some able king, such
as Rotharis (636-52) the subject of the following legend, till it was
finally broken by Charlemagne the Frank (774).
[Illustration: KING ROTHER PUTS THE SHOES ON THE PRINCESS’S FEET.]
II.
KING ROTHER (RUOTHER).