High above, on the Capitolium of the city, towered the Palatium, the
royal residence of the Asdings; not a single dwelling, but a whole
group of buildings. Originally planned as an acropolis, a fortress to
rule the lower city and afford a view over both harbors across the sea,
the encircling structures had been but slightly changed by Genseric and
his successors; the palace remained a citadel and was well suited to
hold the Carthaginians in check. A narrow ascent led up from the quay
to a small gateway enclosed between solid walls and surmounted by a
tower. This gateway opened into a large square resembling a courtyard,
inclosed on all sides by the buildings belonging to the palace; the
northern one, facing the sea, was occupied by the King's House, where
the ruler himself lived with his family. The cellars extended deep into
the rocks; they had often been used as dungeons, especially for state
criminals. On the eastern side of the King's House, separated from it
only by a narrow space, was the Princes' House, and opposite to this,
the arsenal; the southern side, sloping toward the city, was closed by
the fortress wall, its gateway and tower.
The handsomest room on the ground-floor of the Princes' House was a
splendidly decorated, pillared hall. In the centre, on a table of
citrus wood, stood a tall, richly gilded jug with handles, and several
goblets of different forms; the dark-red wine exhaled a strong
fragrance. A couch, covered with a zebra skin, was beside it, on which,
clinging together in the most tender embrace, sat "the handsomest of
the Vandals" and a no less beautiful young woman. The youth had laid
aside his helmet, adorned with the silvery wing-feathers of the white
heron; his long locks fell in waves upon his shoulders and mingled with
the light golden hair of his young wife, who was eagerly trying to
unclasp the heavy breast-plate; at last she let it fall clanking beside
the helmet and sword-belt upon the marble floor. Then, gazing lovingly
at his noble face, she stroked back, with both soft hands, the
clustering locks that curled around his temples, looking radiantly into
his merry, laughing eyes.
"Do I really have you with me once more? Do I hold you in my embrace?"
she said in a low, tender tone, putting both arms on his shoulders and
clasping her hands on his neck.
"Oh, my sweet one!" cried the warrior, snatching her to his heart and
covering eyes, cheeks, and pouting lips with ardent kisses. "Oh, Hilda,
my joy, my wife! How I longed for you--night and day--always!"
"It is almost forty days," she sighed.
"Quite forty. Ah, how long they seemed to me!"
"Oh, it was far easier for you! To be ever on the move with your
brother, your comrades, to ride swiftly and fight gayly in the land of
the foe. While I--I was forced to sit here in the women's rooms; to sit
and weave and wait inactive! Oh, if I could only have been there too!
To dash onward by your side upon a fiery horse, ride, fight, and at
last--fall, with you. After a hero's life--a hero's death!"
She started up; her gray-blue eyes flashed with a wonderful light, and
tossing back her waving hair she raised both arms enthusiastically.
Her husband gently drew her down again. "My high-hearted wife, my
Hilda," he said, smiling, "with the instinct of a seer your ancestor
chose for you the name of the glorious leader of the Valkyries. How
much I owe old Hildebrand, the master at arms of the great King of the
Goths! With the name the nature came to you. And his training and
teaching probably did the rest."
Hilda nodded. "I scarcely knew my parents, they died so young. Ever
since I could remember I was under the charge and protection of the
white-bearded hero. In the palace at Ravenna he locked me in his
apartments, keeping me jealously away from the pious Sisters, the nuns,
and from the priests who educated my playmates,--among them the
beautiful Mataswintha. I grew up with his other foster-child,
dark-haired Teja. My friend Teja taught me to play the harp, but also
to hurl spears and catch them on the shield. Later, when the king, and
still more his daughter, the learned Amalaswintha, insisted that I must
study with the women and the priests, how sullenly,"--she smiled at the
remembrance,--"how angrily the old great-grandfather questioned me in
the evening about what the nuns had taught me during the day! If I had
recited the proverbs and Latin hymns, the _Deus pater ingenite_ or
_Salve sancta parens_ by Sedulius--I scarcely knew more than the
beginning!"--she laughed merrily--"he shook his massive head, muttered
something in his long white beard, and cried: 'Come, Hilda! Let's get
out of doors. Come on the sea. There I will tell you about the ancient
gods and heroes of our people.' Then he took me far, far from the
crowded harbors into the solitude of a desolate, savage island, where
the gulls circled and the wild swan built her nest amid the rushes;
there we sat down on the sand, and, while the foaming waves rolled
close to our feet, he told me tales of the past. And what tales old
Hildebrand could tell! My eyes rested intently on his lips as, with my
elbows propped on his knee, I gazed into his face. How his sea-gray
eyes sparkled! how his white hair fluttered in the evening breeze! His
voice trembled with enthusiasm; he no longer knew where he was; he saw
everything he related, or often--in disconnected words--sang. When the
tale ended, he waked as if from a dream, started up and laughed,
stroking my head: 'There! There! Now I've once more blown those saints,
with their dull, mawkish gentleness, out of your soul, as the north
wind, sweeping through the church windows, drives out the smoke of the
incense.' But they had taken no firm hold," she added, smiling.
"And so you grew up half a pagan, as Gelimer says," replied her
husband, raising his finger warningly, "but as a full heroine, who
believes in nothing so entirely as the glory of her people."
"And in yours--and in your love," Hilda murmured tenderly, kissing him
on the forehead. "Yet it is true," she added, "if you Vandals had not
been the nearest kinsfolk of my Goths, I don't know whether I should
have loved you--ah, no; I _must_ have loved you--when, sent by Gelimer,
you came to woo me. But as it is, to see you was to love you. I owe all
my happiness to Gelimer! I will always remember it: it shall bind me to
him when otherwise," she added slowly and thoughtfully, "many things
might repel me."
"My brother desired, by this marriage, to end the hostility, bridge the
gulf which had separated the two kingdoms since--since that bloody deed
of Hilderic. It did not succeed! He united only us, not our nations. He
is full of heavy cares and gloomy thoughts."
"Yes. I often think he must be ill," said Hilda, shaking her head.
"He?--The strongest hero in our army! He alone--not even Brother
Zazo--can bend my outstretched sword-arm."
"Not ill in body,--soul-sick! But hush! Here he comes. See how
sorrowful, how gloomy he looks. Is that the brow, the face, of a
conqueror?"