Volume Iii Part 43 (1/2)

Never had Totila shone in such beauty! The people greeted him upon his way with shouts of joy. At the northern gate of Taginae, Aligern came riding towards him.

”I thought that thy place was with the right wing,” said the King.

”What brings thee here?”

”My cousin Teja has ordered me to remain at thy side and guard thy life.”

”My Teja is untiring in his care of me!” cried the King.

Aligern joined the escort.

Earl Thoris.m.u.th now undertook the command of the footmen who were hidden in the houses of Taginae.

Outside the gate, the King rode to the front of his not very numerous troop of hors.e.m.e.n, and disclosed his plan to the captains.

”I entrust to you, comrades, the most difficult of all tasks--flight!

But the flight will be only seeming. What is true, is your courage and the destruction of the foe.”

And now the small troop rode forward past the place of ambush on the Flaminian Way, the King convincing himself that the Persian hors.e.m.e.n were in readiness upon both the wooded heights. The ambush on the right was commanded by Furius himself, that on the left by his chief, Isdigerd.

Totila now rode into Caprae through the southern gate, and admonished the bowmen under Earl Wisand not to issue from the houses in which they were concealed, until the Persian hors.e.m.e.n had fallen upon the Longobardians from their ambush, but then immediately to sally out of the southern gate, while at the same time the spear-bearers would advance against the enemy from the northern gate of Taginae.

”Thus the Longobardians and such of Na.r.s.es' foot who have pressed forward between Caprae and Taginae will be surrounded on all sides and crushed. I and Thoris.m.u.th attack in front, Furius and Isdigerd on both flanks, and Wisand in the rear. They will be lost!”

”Does he not look like the sun-G.o.d?” Adalgoth delightedly asked Julius.

”Peace! Make no idol of sun or man! Besides, to-day is the solstice!”

answered Julius.

At length the King reached the northern gate of Caprae, left it open behind him, and galloped out with his little troop upon the level land between Caprae and Helvillum.

Here Na.r.s.es had placed his centre; foremost Alboin with his Longobardians. Behind these, at a considerable distance, stood Na.r.s.es in his litter, surrounded by Cethegus, Liberius, Auzalas, and other leaders.

Na.r.s.es had had a bad night, disturbed by slight fits. He was very weak, and could not stand up for any length of time in his low and open litter.

He had strictly admonished Alboin not to advance to the attack without special orders.

King Totila gave a sign to his hors.e.m.e.n, and at a trot the thin line advanced towards the far superior ranks of the Longobardians.

”They surely will not shame us by attacking us with only a few lances?”

cried Alboin.

But an attack did not seem to be the present object of the King.

He had ridden far in advance of his men, who had suddenly halted, and now attracted all eyes by his feats of horsemans.h.i.+p.

The spectacle which he afforded was so wonderful in the eyes of the Byzantines, that the witnesses related it in astonishment to Procopius, who, himself amazed, has remitted it to us.

”On this day,” he writes, ”King Totila evidently wished to show his enemies what manner of man he was. His weapons and his horse shone with gold. So many s.h.i.+ning red streamers fluttered from the point of his spear that this ornament alone announced the King from a distance.