The Viking's Skull

by John R. Carling

Not till Alboin had sworn to accomplish his purpose, with or without marriage, did Rosamond yield her reluctant assent to become his wife. The ceremony took place on the spot, Paulinus himself, the traitor-bishop, performing the marriage-rite.

Rosamond, half-fainting, was led by her attendant maidens to the altar, and holding Alboin's hand, was forced to utter the words of the wedding-ritual amid the rude shouting of the Lombard soldiery, one of whom carried the head of Cunimund affixed to the point of a pike.

Language fails to convey an adequate conception of the wild horror displayed by Rosamond at this juncture in being mated to a man she loathed, and by an ecclesiastic whose hands were red with her father's blood. In an agony of grief and rage she mingled the holy words of the ritual with fierce "asides." She was no longer the sweet maiden of the first act, but a woman thirsting for vengeance.

It struck Idris that the situation of Rosamond offered an analogy to that of Lorelie herself in being wedded to an uncongenial consort and living in daily communion with a man guilty of bloodshed. Then slowly the belief came over him that this emotion on her part was not a piece of acting, but the real expression of her feelings. It was no mock princess that he beheld, breathing an imaginary hatred against stage-foes, but a wronged woman animated with a deadly purpose against her husband and her father-in-law. What had happened to transform Lorelie's sweet and gracious nature to this dark and vengeful mood?

"As I live," muttered Idris, when the curtain had descended upon the scene, "she is importing her own personal feelings into the piece. She hates the earl and Ivar, and is laying some snare for them."

"You have hit it," replied Beatrice. "This play is for their humiliation and ruin."

"How is it that her object did not reveal itself to them during the rehearsal?"

"Because she did not act then in the same spirit as now: and, moreover, she will insert some words not in the printed edition of her play in order to mark their effect upon the earl. There will be no need to ask what words, or for what purpose uttered: you will know as soon as you hear. See!" exclaimed Beatrice, in a voice trembling with suppressed excitement, "the third act is beginning."

As the curtain ascended again a murmur of admiration rose from the audience at the beauty of the tableau revealed to view. The scene represented the refectory of a palace, and was so arranged that the actual walls of the Gothic hall in which the audience sat formed the wings and rear of the stage scenery, thus producing an effect more realistic than could have been attained by painted canvas. A spacious and splendid arched casement facing the audience made a part of this refectory; the scene had been purposely timed with regard to the moon's course, and it was no mock planet, but the real silver orb of night that shone through the panes of stained glass from a sky of darkest blue. The moonlight without contrasted curiously with the glow cast by the lamps pendent from the vaulted roof of the supposed banqueting hall.

A feast was taking place, given by King Alboin to celebrate his victory over Cunimund. Historically speaking, the memorable and fatal banquet with which the name of Rosamond is associated, happened several years after the defeat of the Gepid king, but for the sake of dramatic effect Lorelie had represented it as the immediate consequence of that defeat.