Volume I Part 16 (1/2)
”Why? Have you already seen him?”
The girl reflected. She had promised Athalaric not to allow his disobedience to come to the ears of his physicians; and besides, it went against her feelings to desecrate and betray their meeting. So she avoided the question and said:
”If the King refuses to obey his mother, the Queen-regent, he is not likely to suffer himself to be controlled by a young girl.”
”What sweet simplicity!” laughed Cethegus. And he dropped the conversation as long as the girl remained in the room. But afterwards, in private, he forced from Rusticiana a promise to manage matters so that her daughter in future might frequently see and speak to the King.
It was possible to do this, for Athalaric's health rapidly improved. He became daily more manly and more decided. It seemed as if his opposition to Cethegus strengthened him both bodily and mentally.
In a very short time he again spent many hours of the day in the extensive pleasure-grounds. It was here that his mother and the family of Boethius frequently met him in the evening.
And while Rusticiana appeared to receive the gracious courtesies of the Queen with answering friends.h.i.+p, listening attentively to her confidential remarks, in order afterwards to report them, word for word, to the Prefect, the two young people walked before them through the shady paths of the garden. Often this select company entered one of the light gondolas in the little harbour, and Athalaric rowed them himself over the blue sea to one of the small wooded isles which lay not far away. On the return home, the purple sails were spread, and the fresh breeze, which always arose at sunset, carried them gently and idly back. Camilla and the King, accompanied by Daphnidion, frequently enjoyed this trip over the waves alone.
Amalaswintha naturally saw the danger of increasing by such freedom the inclination of her son for Camilla, which had not escaped her notice; but, above all other considerations, she was thankful for the favourable influence which this companions.h.i.+p evidently exercised upon her son. In Camilla's presence he was quieter and more cheerful; and at the same time more gentle in his manner to herself, which had often been abrupt and violent. He also controlled his feelings with a mastery which was doubly surprising in such an irritable invalid. And, lastly, the Queen-regent, supposing that his inclination should indeed ripen to earnest love, would not be averse to an alliance which promised completely to win the Roman aristocracy, and erase all memory of a cruel deed.
In Camilla a wonderful change was going forward. Day by day, as she more and more clearly saw the n.o.ble tenderness, the gifted soul, and the deep and poetical feelings of the young King develop, she felt her hate melt away. With difficulty she recalled to her memory the fate of her father, as an antidote to this sweet poison; she learnt better to distinguish justly which of the Goths and Amelungs had contributed to that fate, and, with growing certainty, she felt that it was unjust to hate Athalaric for a misfortune which he had merely not opposed, and indeed would hardly have been able to prevent. She would have liked, long ago, to speak to him openly, but she mistrusted her own weakness; she shunned it as a sin against father, fatherland, and her own freedom; she trembled as she felt how indispensable this n.o.ble youth had become to her, how much she thirsted to hear his melodious voice, and look into his dark and thoughtful eyes. She feared this sinful love--which she could now scarcely conceal from herself--and she would not part with the only weapon that remained to her: the reproach of his pa.s.sive acquiescence in her father's death.
So she fluctuated from feeling to feeling; all the more hesitatingly, the more mysterious Athalaric's strange reserve became. After all that had happened, she could not doubt that he loved her; and yet--
Not a syllable, not a look betrayed this love. The exclamation with which he had left her at the Temple of Venus was the most important, the only important speech that had escaped him. She could not suspect what the youth had suffered before his love had become not extinguished, but self-denying. And still less in what new feeling he had found manly strength enough for such renunciation.
Her mother, who watched Athalaric with all the keenness of hate, and, in doing so, forgot to observe her own child, appeared even more astonished at his coldness.
”But patience,” she said to Cethegus, with whom she often consulted behind Camilla's back. ”Patience! soon, in three days' time, you will see him alter.”
”It is high time,” answered Cethegus. ”But upon what grounds do you build?”
”Upon a means which has never yet failed me.”
”You will not, surely, mix a love-philtre for him?” asked the Prefect, smiling.
”Certainly I shall. I have done so already.”
He looked at her mockingly.
”And are you, then, so superst.i.tious, you, the widow of the great philosopher, Boethius? Upon my word, in love affairs all women are mad alike!”
”It is neither madness nor superst.i.tion,” replied Rusticiana quietly.
”Our family has possessed this secret charm for more than a hundred years. An Egyptian woman once gave it to one of my female ancestors on the Nile, and it has always proved its power. No woman of my family has ever loved without requital.”
”That required no magic,” observed the Prefect. ”You are a handsome race.”
”Spare your sarcasm. The love-philtre is unfailing, and if it has not yet taken effect----”
”So you have really---- What imprudence! How could you, un.o.bserved----”
”Every evening, when he returns from a walk or a row with us, Athalaric takes a cup of spiced Falernian. The physicians ordered it. There are some drops of Arabian balsam in it. The cup always stands ready upon the marble table in front of the temple. Three times I have succeeded in pouring in my potion.”
”Well,” observed Cethegus, ”until now it has done no particular good.”