"Thou hast not the other half," said Gotho, and took the second half of the bracelet from her bosom. "See, here is written:
"'--to the Balthe,
--to the falcon,
--and death,
--to the friend.'"
And now Teja, holding the two halves together, read:
"'The Amelung to the Balthe,
The eagle to the falcon,
In need and death,
The friend to the friend.'"
But the King continued to read from the roll:
"'King Theodoric could no longer protect me when letters were laid before him, in which my handwriting was so excellently imitated that I myself, on being shown a harmless sentence which had been cut out, acknowledged without hesitation that I had written it. Then the judges fitted the piece into the parchment and read the whole to me. That letter purported to be written to the court of Byzantium, with the promise that the writer would murder the King and evacuate South Italy, if the Emperor would acknowledge him as King of North Italy. And the judges condemned me. As I was led away from the hall, I met my old friend Cethegus Cæsarius in the passage. I had some time before succeeded in persuading a girl with whom he was in love to leave him and marry a good friend of mine in Gaul. Cethegus forced his way through my guards, struck me lightly on the shoulder and said, "He from whom his love has been torn, comforts himself with revenge;" and his eyes told me that he, and no other, had been my secret accuser. As a last favour, the King procured me the means of escape. But I and all my house were outlawed. For a long time I wandered restlessly in the northern mountains, until I recollected that some old and faithful adherents of my house were settled upon the Iffinger mountain. Thither I went with my boy, taking with me a few hereditary jewels, and my faithful friends received me and my son, and hid me under the name of Wargs--the banished--and gave out that I was the son of old Iffa, sending away all untrustworthy servants who might have betrayed me. Thus I lived in secret for some years. I educate my son to be my avenger on Cethegus the traitor, and when I die, old Iffa will continue this education. I hope the day will come when my innocence will be proved. But if it delays too long, my son, when he can wield the sword, shall leave the Iffinger and go to Italy, and revenge his father upon Cethegus Cæsarius. That is my last word to my son.'--'But,'" the King now read from a second paper, "'soon after the Duke had written this, a great landslip buried him, together with some of my relations. And I, Iffa, have brought up the boy as my grandchild and Gotho's brother, for the ban had not been taken off the family of Duke Alaric, and I did not wish to expose the boy to the revenge of that devil, Cethegus. And that it might not be possible for the boy to betray anything about his dangerous parentage, I never told him of it. But when he was grown up, and I heard that there reigned in the Roman citadel a mild and just King, who had conquered the devilish Prefect as the God of Morning conquers the Giant of the Night, I sent young Adalgoth away, and told him that, according to his father's command, he must revenge the noble chief and patron of our family upon Cethegus the traitor. But I did not even then tell him that he was Alaric's son, for I feared the ban. So long as his father's innocence was unproved, his father's name could only injure him. And I sent him away in great haste, for I discovered that the belief in his brotherly relation to my grandchild, Gotho, had not prevented him from loving her in a very unbrotherly manner. I might have told him that Gotho was not his sister. But far be it from me that I should dishonestly try to unite the noble scion of my old master and patron with my blood, the simple shepherd's child. No, if justice still exists upon earth, he will soon take his place as Duke of Apulia, like his father before him. And as I fear that I may die before he sends me word of the Prefect's ruin, I have begged the long Hildegisel to write all this down.' (And I, Hildegisel, have received for the writing twenty pounds of the best cheese, and twelve jars of honey, which I thankfully acknowledge, and all of which was good.) 'And with, these writings, and with the blue stones and fine garments and golden solidi from the inheritance of the Balthes, I send my child Gotho to King Totila the Just, to whom she must reveal everything. He will take the ban away from the innocent son of the guiltless duke. And when Adalgoth knows that he is the heir of the Balthes, and that Gotho is not his sister--then he may freely choose or shun the shepherdess; but this he must know, that the race of the Iffingers was never a race of vassals, but free from the very beginning, although under the protection of the House of Balthe.
"'And now. King Totila, decide the fate of my grandchild and Adalgoth.'"
CHAPTER XIII.
"Well," laughed the King, "thou hast spared me the trouble, Duke of Apulia!"
"And the little duchess," added Valeria, "has, as if she had foreseen what was coming, already adorned herself like a bride."