More Bywords. Charlotte M. Yonge
forbids not thy ransoming thyself.”
Verronax smiled slightly, and touched the collar at his throat.
“This is all the gold that I possess.”
The Senator rapidly appraised it with his eye. There was a regular tariff on the lives of free Romans, free Goths, guests, and trusted men of the King; and if the deceased were merely a lite, or freeman of the lowest rank, it was just possible that the gold collar might purchase its master’s life, provided he were not too proud to part with the ancestral badge.
By this time the tribunal had been reached—a special portion of the peristyle, with a curule chair, inlaid with ivory, placed on a tesselated pavement, as in the old days of the Republic, and a servant on each side held the lictor’s axe and bundle of rods, which betokened stern Roman justice, wellnigh a mockery now. The forum of the city would have been the regular place, but since an earthquake had done much damage there, and some tumults had taken place among the citizens, the seat of judgment had by general consent been placed in the Æmilian household as the place of chief security, and as he was the accredited magistrate with their Gothic masters, as Sidonius had been before his banishment.
As Sidonius looked at the grave face of the Senator, set like a rock, but deadly pale, he thought it was no unworthy representative of Brutus or Manlius of old who sat on that seat.
Alas! would he not be bound by his fatal oath to be only too true a representative of their relentless justice?
On one side of the judgment-seat stood Verronax, towering above all around; behind him Marina and Columba, clinging together, trembling and tearful, but their weeping restrained by the looks of the Senator, and by a certain remnant of hope.
To the other side advanced the Goths, all much larger and taller men than any one except the young Gaulish chieftain. The foremost was a rugged-looking veteran, with grizzled locks and beard, and a sunburnt face. This was Meinhard, the head of the garrison on Deodatus’s farm, a man well known to Æmilius, and able to speak Latin enough to hold communication with the Romans. Several younger men pressed rudely behind him, but they were evidently impressed by the dignity of the tribunal, though it was with a loud and fierce shout that they recognised Verronax standing so still and unmoved.
“Silence!” exclaimed the Senator, lifting his ivory staff.
Meinhard likewise made gestures to hush them, and they ceased, while the Senator, greeting Meinhard and inviting him to share his seat of authority, demanded what they asked.
“Right!” was their cry. “Right on the slayer of Odorik, the son of Odo, of the lineage of Odin, our guest, and of the King’s trust.”
“Right shall ye have, O Goths,” returned Æmilius. “A Roman never flinches from justice. Who are witnesses to the deed? Didst thou behold it, O Meinhard, son of Thorulf?”
“No, noble Æmilius. It had not been wrought had I been present; but here are those who can avouch it. Stand forth, Egilulf, son of Amalrik.”
“It needs not,” said Verronax. “I acknowledge the deed. The Goth scoffed at us for invoking a created Man. I could not stand by to hear my Master insulted, and I smote him, but in open fight, whereof I bear the token.”
“That is true,” said Meinhard. “I know that Verronax, the Arvernian, would strike no coward blow. Therefore did I withhold these comrades of Odorik from rushing on thee in their fury; but none the less art thou in feud with Odo, the father of Odorik, who will require of thee either thy blood or the wehrgeld.”
“Wehrgeld I have none to pay,” returned Verronax, in the same calm voice.
“I have sworn!” said Æmilius in a clear low voice, steady but full of suppressed anguish. A shriek was heard among the women, and Sidonius stepped forth and demanded the amount of wehrgeld.
“That must be for King Euric to decide,” returned Meinhard. “He will fix the amount, and it will be for Odo to choose whether he will accept it. The mulct will be high, for the youth was of high Baltic blood, and had but lately arrived with his father from the north!”
“Enough,” said Verronax. “Listen, Meinhard. Thou knowest me, and the Arvernian faith. Leave me this night to make my peace with Heaven and my parting with man. At the hour of six to-morrow morning, I swear that I will surrender myself into thine hands to be dealt with as it may please the father of this young man.”
“So let it be, Meinhard,” said Æmilius, in a stifled voice.
“I know Æmilius, and I know Verronax,” returned the Goth.
They grasped hands, and then Meinhard drew off his followers, leaving two, at the request of Marcus, to act as sentinels at the gate.
The Senator sat with his hands clasped over his face in unutterable grief, Columba threw herself into the arms of her betrothed, Marina tore her hair, and shrieked out—
“I will not hold my peace! It is cruel! It is wicked! It is barbarous!”
“Silence, Marina,” said Verronax. “It is just! I am no ignorant child. I knew the penalty when I incurred it! My Columba, remember, though it was a hasty blow, it was in defence of our Master’s Name.”
The thought might comfort her by and by; as yet it could not.
The Senator rose and took his hand.
“Thou dost forgive me, my son?” he said.
“I should find it hard to forgive one who lessened my respect for the Æmilian constancy,” returned Verronax.
Then he led Marcus aside to make arrangements with him respecting his small mountain estate and the remnant of his tribe, since Marina was his nearest relative, and her little son would, if he were cut off, be the sole heir to the ancestral glories of Vercingetorix.
“And I cannot stir to save such a youth as that!” cried the Senator in a tone of agony as he wrung the hand of Sidonius. “I have bound mine own hands, when I would sell all I have to save him. O my friend and father, well mightest thou blame my rashness, and doubt the justice that could be stern where the heart was not touched.”
“But I am not bound by thine oath, my friend,” said Sidonius. “True it is that the Master would not be served by the temporal sword, yet such zeal as that of this youth merits that we should strive to deliver him. Utmost justice would here be utmost wrong. May I send one of your slaves as a messenger to my son to see what he can raise? Though I fear me gold and silver is more scarce than it was in our younger days.”
This was done, and young Lucius also took a summons from the Bishop to the deacons of the Church in the town, authorising the use of the sacred vessels to raise the ransom, but almost all of these had been already parted with in the time of a terrible famine which had ravaged Arvernia a few years previously, and had denuded all the wealthy and charitable families of their plate and jewels. Indeed Verronax shrank from the treasure of the Church being thus applied. Columba might indeed weep for him exultingly as a martyr, but, as he well knew, martyrs do not begin as murderers, and passion, pugnacity, and national hatred had been uppermost with him. It was the hap of war, and he was ready to take it patiently, and prepare himself for death as a brave Christian man, but not a hero or a martyr; and there was little hope either that a ransom so considerable as the rank of the parties would require could be raised without the aid of the Æmilii, or that, even if it were, the fierce old father would accept it. The more civilised Goths, whose families had ranged Italy, Spain, and Aquitaine for two or three generations, made murder the matter of bargain that had shocked Æmilius; but this was an old man from the mountain cradle of the race, unsophisticated, and but lately converted.
In the dawn of the summer morning Bishop Sidonius celebrated the Holy Eucharist for the mournful family in the oratory, a vaulted chamber underground, which had served the same purpose in the days of persecution, and had the ashes of two tortured martyrs of the Æmilian household, mistress and slave, enshrined together beneath the altar, which had since been richly inlaid with coloured marble.
Afterwards