At mid-day Procopius rode into Ravenna.
He carried with him four letters: the letter of Justinian to
Belisarius, the letters of the King of the Franks to Cethegus and
Belisarius, and a letter from Belisarius to Witichis.
This last had been written by Procopius and dictated by Cethegus.
The ambassador had no suspicion of the mood in which he should find the
King of the Goths and his beautiful Queen.
The healthy but simple mind of the King had begun to darken, if not to
despair, under the pressure of continual misfortune. The murder of his
only child, the terrible wrench of parting from his beloved wife, had
shaken him to the very soul; but he had borne it all in the hope of
securing victory to the Goths.
And now this victory obstinately tarried.
In spite of all efforts, the state of his people became more hopeless
every month. With the single exception of the battle fought and won on
the march to Rome, fortune had never smiled upon the Goths.
The siege of Rome, undertaken with such proud hopes, had ended in a
woeful retreat and the loss of three-fourths of the army. New strokes
of fortune, bad news that followed each other like rapid blows,
increased the King's depression, until it degenerated into a state of
dull despair.
Almost all Italy, except Ravenna, was lost. Belisarius, while yet in
Rome, had sent a fleet to Genoa, under the command of Mundila the
Herulian, and Ennes the Isaurian. The troops had landed without
resistance, had conquered the sea-ruling harbour of Genoa, and, from
that point, almost all Liguria.
Datius, the Bishop of Mediolanum, himself invited the Byzantines to
that important city. Thence they easily won Bergomum, Comum, and
Novaria.
On the other side, the discouraged Goths in Clusium and the half-ruined
Dertona surrendered to the besiegers and were led prisoners out of
Italy.
Urbinum, after a brave resistance, was taken by the Byzantines; also
Forum Cornelii and the whole district of AEmilia by Johannes. The Goths
failed to retake Ancona, Ariminum, and Mediolanum.
Still worse news presently arrived to increase the despondency of the
King. For meanwhile famine was making ravages in the wide districts of
AEmilia, Picenum and Tuscany.
There were neither men, cattle, nor horses to serve the plough. The
people fled into the woods and mountains, made bread of acorns, and
devoured grass and weeds.
Devastating maladies were the consequence of insufficient or
unwholesome nourishment.
In Picenum alone perished fifty thousand souls; a still greater number
succumbed to hunger and pestilence on the other side of the Ionian
Gulf, in Dalmatia, Pale and thin, those still living tottered to the
grave; their skins became black and like leather; their glassy eyes
started from the sockets; their intestines burned as if with fire.
The vultures despised the corpses of the victims of pestilence;
but human flesh was devoured by men. Mothers killed and ate their
newly-born children.
In a farm near Ariminum only two Roman women had remained alive. These
women murdered and devoured, one after another, seventeen men, who,
singly, had sought a shelter in their house. The eighteenth awoke as
they were about to strangle him in his sleep. He killed the fiendish
women, and discovered the fate of their earlier victims.
Lastly, the hopes placed in the Franks and Longobardians were utterly
destroyed.
The Franks, who had already received large sums for the promised army
of alliance, were silent. The messengers of the King, who were sent to
urge the fulfilment of their promise, were detained at Mettis,
Aurelianum, and Paris; no answer came from these courts.
The King of the Longobardians sent word that he could decide nothing
without the consent of his warlike son Alboin. That the latter was
absent in search of adventures. Perhaps he would at some time reach
Italy; he was an intimate friend of Narses. Then he could observe the
country for himself, and advise his father and his countrymen as to the
course to be taken.
It is true that the important fortress of Auximum withstood, for
months, all the efforts of the powerful army which besieged it under
Belisarius, accompanied by Procopius. But it wrung the King's heart
when a messenger (who had, with much difficulty, stolen his way through
the two investing armies to Ravenna) brought him the following message
from the heroic Earl Wisand:
"When Auximum was entrusted to my care, thou saidst that therewith I
should hold the keys of Ravenna; yea, of the kingdom. Thou badest me
resist manfully until thou camest thyself with thy whole army to my
assistance. We have manfully resisted not only Belisarius, but famine.
Where is thy relief? Woe to us if thy words are true, and with this
fortress the keys of our kingdom fall into the enemy's hands! Come
therefore, and help us; more for the kingdom's sake than for our own!"
This messenger was soon followed by a second: Burcentius, a soldier
belonging to the besieging army, who had been bribed with much gold.
His message ran--the short letter was written in blood:
"We have now only the weeds that grow between the stones to eat. We
cannot hold out longer than four days more."
As this last messenger was returning with the King's reply, he fell
into the hands of the besiegers, who burnt him alive in sight of the
Goths before the walls of Auximum.
And the King could give no help.
The small party of Goths in Auximum still resisted, although Belisarius
cut off the supply of water by destroying the aqueducts and poisoning
the remaining wells with the corpses of men and animals, thrown in with
lime.
Wisand still fiercely repelled every attack. On one of these occasions
Belisarius only escaped death at the sacrifice of one of his
body-guard.
Finally, Caesena, the last of the Gothic towns on the AEmilia, was the
first to fall; and then Faesulae, which was besieged by Cyprianus and
Justinus.
"My poor Faesulae!" exclaimed the King, when he learned this last
disaster, for he had been the Count of that town, and close to it lay
the house where he had lived so happily with Rauthgundis;--"My poor
Faesulae! the Huns will run riot in my deserted home!"
When, later, the garrison taken prisoner at Faesulae were led in chains
before the eyes of the defenders of Auximum, and reported to the latter
the hopelessness of any relief from Ravenna, the famished troops of
Wisand compelled him to surrender.
He stipulated for himself a free escort to Ravenna. His men were led
prisoners out of Italy.
And, so deeply sunk was the courage and patriotism of the conquered
troops, that, led by Earl Sisifrid of Sarsina, they accepted service
against their own countrymen under the flag of Belisarius.
The victor had strongly garrisoned Auximum and then led the army back
to the camp before Ravenna, where he now again took the command, which
had been entrusted to Cethegus during his absence.
It was as if a curse rested upon the head of the Gothic King, who so
sorely felt the weight of his crown.
As he could not ascribe the cause of his failure to any weakness or
oversight on his own part; as he did not doubt in the justice of the
Gothic cause, and as his simple piety could see nothing but the hand of
Heaven in all his misfortunes, he conceived the torturing thought that
God was punishing the Goths for some unforgiven sin committed by
himself, a conviction imparted to his conscience by the then dominating
doctrine of the Old Testament no less than by many features of the old
Germanic legends.
Day and night the King was tortured by this idea, which undermined his
strength and resolution. Now he tried to discover his secret guilt; now
he reflected how he could at least turn aside the curse from his
people.
He would long since have abdicated, but that such an act at such a
moment would have been considered cowardly both by himself and others.
So this escape from his misery--the quickest and best--was closed to
him.
His soul was bowed to the very earth. He often sat motionless for
hours, silent and staring at vacancy; at times shaking his head or
sighing deeply.
The daily recurring sight of this resigned suffering, this dumb and
hopeless bearing of an oppressive fate, was not, as we have said,
without effect on Mataswintha. She thought that lately the eyes of
Witichis rested upon her with an expression of sorrow and even of
beneficence.
And vague hope--which is so difficult to destroy in a living
heart--remorse and compassion, attracted her more powerfully than ever
to the suffering King.
They were now often thrown together by some common errand of mercy.
For some weeks the inhabitants of Ravenna had begun to suffer want,
while the besiegers ruled the sea from Ancona, and received plentiful
provisions from Calabria and Sicily.
None but rich citizens could afford to pay the high price asked for
corn.
The King's kind heart did not hesitate, when he had provided his
troops, to share the wealth of his magazines--which, as we have seen,
contained sufficient for the wants of all for more than double the time
required for the arrival of the Franks--amongst the poor of the city.
He also hoped for the arrival of many ships laden with corn, which the
Goths had collected in the northern districts of the Padus, and which
lay in that river, waiting for an opportunity to reach Ravenna.
In order to avoid any misuse of his bounty, or extravagance in the
granting of rations, the King himself superintended the distribution;
and Mataswintha, who one day met him among the groups of grateful
people, placed herself near him upon the marble steps of the Basilica
of Saint Apollonaris, and helped him to fill the baskets with bread.
It was a touching sight to see this royal pair standing before the
church doors, distributing their gift to the people.
As they were standing thus, Mataswintha remarked among the crowd--for
many country-people had fled to the city from all sides--sitting upon
the lowest step of the Basilica, a woman in a simple brown mantle,
which was half drawn over her head.
This woman did not press forward with the others to demand bread, but
leaned against a high sarcophagus, with her head resting upon her hand,
and, half concealed by the corner pillar of the Basilica, looked
sharply and fixedly at the Queen.
Mataswintha thought that the woman was restrained by fear, pride, or
shame, from mixing with the more importunate beggars who pushed and
crowded each other upon the steps, and she gave Aspa a basket of bread,
telling her to go down and give it to the woman. With care she heaped
up the sweet-scented bread with both her hands.
As she looked up, she met the eye of the King, which rested upon her
with a more soft and friendly expression than she had ever seen before.
She started slightly, and the blood rushed into her cheeks as she cast
down her beautiful eyes.
When she again looked up and glanced towards the woman in the brown
mantle, she perceived that the place by the sarcophagus was empty. The
woman had disappeared.
She had not observed, while filling the basket, that a man, clad in a
buffalo-skin and a steel cap, who had been standing behind the woman,
had caught her arm and drawn her away with gentle violence.
"Come," he had said; "this is no place for thee."
And, as if in a dream, the woman had answered:
"By God, she is wonderfully lovely!"
"I thank thee, Mataswintha," said the King, in a friendly manner, when
the rations for the day had been distributed.
The look, the tone, the words, penetrated her heart.
Never before had he called her by her name; he had ever met and spoken
to her only as the "Queen."
How happy those few words from his mouth had made her; and yet how
heavily his kindness weighed upon her guilty soul!
Evidently she had earned his more affectionate feeling by her active
compassion for the poor.
"Oh, he is good!" she cried to herself, half weeping with emotion. "I
also will be good!"
As, occupied by this thought, she entered the court of the left wing of
the palace, which was assigned to her--the King inhabited the right
wing--Aspa hurried to meet her.
"A messenger from the camp," she eagerly whispered. "He brings a secret
message from the Prefect--a letter, in Syphax's handwriting--in our
language. He waits for a reply."
"Leave me!" cried Mataswintha, frowning. "I will hear and read
nothing.--But who are these?" And she pointed to the steps leading from
the court to her apartments.
There, upon the cold stones, crouched women, children, and sick people,
clothed in rags--a group of misery.
"Beggars," said Aspa; "poor people. They have lain there the whole
morning. They will not be driven away."
"They shall not be driven away," said Mataswintha, drawing near.
"Bread, Queen! Bread, daughter of the Amelungs!" cried many voices.
"Give them gold, Aspa. All that thou hast with thee; and fetch----"
"Bread, bread. Queen--not gold! No more bread is to be had for money in
all the city."
"It is dispensed freely outside the King's magazines. I have just come
thence. Why were you not there?"
"Queen! we could not get through the crowd," said a haggard woman. "I
am aged, and my daughter here is sick, and that old man is blind. The
strong and young push us away. For three days we tried to go in vain.
We could not get through."
"Yes, and we starve," grumbled the old man. "O Theodoric! my lord and
King, where art thou? Under thy rule we had enough and to spare!
Then the poor and sick were not deprived of bread. But this unhappy
King----"
"Be silent," said Mataswintha. "The King, my husband"--and a lovely
flush rose into her cheeks--"does more than you deserve. Wait here. I
will bring you bread. Follow me, Aspa." And she hastened away.
"Whither goest thou?" asked the slave, astonished.
Mataswintha drew her veil closely over her face as she answered:
"To the King!"
When she reached the antechamber of the King's apartments, the
door-keeper, who recognised her with amazement, begged her to wait a
moment.
"An ambassador from Belisarius has been admitted to a private audience.
He has been in the room already for some time, and no doubt will soon
leave it."
Just then the door of the King's apartment was opened, and Procopius
stood hesitating upon the threshold.
"King of the Goths," he said, as he once again turned round, "is that
your last word?"
"My last; as it was my first," answered the King, with dignity.
"I will give you time--I will remain in Ravenna till to-morrow----"
"From this moment you are welcome as a guest, but not as an
ambassador."
"I repeat: if the city be taken by storm, all the Goths who are taller
than the sword of Belisarius--he has sworn it--will be killed! The
women and children will be sold into slavery. You understand that
Belisarius will suffer no barbarians in _his_ Italy. The death of a
hero may be tempting to you, but think of the helpless people--their
blood will accuse you before the throne of God----"
"Ambassador, you, as well as we, are in God's hand. Farewell."
And these words were uttered with such majesty, that the Byzantine was
obliged to go, however reluctantly.
The simple dignity of the King had had a strong effect upon him; but
still more upon the listening Queen.
As Procopius slowly shut the door, he saw Mataswintha standing before
him, and started back, dazzled by her great beauty. He greeted her
reverently.
"You are the Queen of the Goths!" he said. "You must be she."
"I am," said Mataswintha. "Would that I had never forgotten it!"
And she passed him with a haughty step.
"These Germans, both men and women," said Procopius, as he went out,
"have eyes such as I have never seen before!"