All Ravenna had become a camp.
Nothing was heard but the hammers of the smiths, the neighing of horses, the rattle of arms, and the war-cry of manœuvring troops.
In this turmoil and restless activity Witichis sought to deaden his grief as well as he could, and looked eagerly forward to the day when he might lead his brave army to meet the enemy.
But though his first impulse was to lose himself in the vortex of a fierce struggle, he did not forget his duty as King, but sent Duke Guntharis and Hildebad to Belisarius with a proposal of peace on the most moderate conditions.
His time thus completely claimed by affairs of state, Witichis had scarcely a thought or look to spare for his Queen, upon whom, as he also imagined, he could bestow no greater favour than the undisturbed enjoyment of liberty.
But since the fatal marriage feast of Witichis and Mataswintha, at the end of which she had learned in the bridal chamber, from his lips, that he did not, could never love her, and had but called her wife to save the nation, Mataswintha had been possessed by a demon: the demon of insatiable revenge.
The most deadly hatred is that of revolted love.
From her childhood Witichis had been Mataswintha's ideal. Her pride, her hope, and her love were all centred in him; and she had as little doubted that the sun would rise on the morrow, as that her longing for him would be satisfied. And now she was forced to confess to herself that he had discovered her passion, and did not reciprocate it; and that, although she was his Queen, her love for him appeared criminal, with regard to his banished wife, who yet alone reigned in his heart.
He, whom she had looked upon as her destined liberator from unworthy bondage, had done her the greatest injury; he had caused her to enter into a marriage bond without love. He had deprived her of her liberty, and had refused his heart in exchange.
And wherefore? What had been the cause of this sin? The Gothic kingdom, and the Gothic crown; for, to uphold these, he had not hesitated a moment to blast her whole life.