oin was pondering how he might conciliate her without owning
himself in the wrong, Rosamund summoned Helmigis, the king's shield-bearer,
and finding that he would not execute her orders and murder his master in
his sleep, she secured the services of the giant Perideus. Before the
murder of the king became generally known, Rosamund and her adherents--for
she had many--secured and concealed the treasures of the Crown; and when
the nobles bade her marry a man to succeed their king, who had left no
heirs, she declared that she preferred Helmigis.

[Sidenote: Death of Rosamund.] The Langobardian nobles indignantly refused
to recognize an armor-bearer as their king, and Rosamund, fearing their
resentment, fled by night with her treasures, and took refuge with
Longinus, viceroy of the Eastern emperor, who was intrenched in Ravenna.
Captivated by the fugitive queen's exquisite beauty, no less than by her
numerous treasures, Longinus proposed that she should poison Helmigis, and
marry him. Rosamund obediently handed the deadly cup to her faithful
adorer; but he drank only half its contents, and then, perceiving that he
was poisoned, forced her, at the point of his sword, to drink the
remainder, thus making sure that she would not long survive him.

Longinus, thus deprived of a beautiful bride, managed to console himself
for her loss by appropriating her treasures, while the Langobardian
scepter, after having been wielded by different kings, fell at last into
the hands of Rother, the last influential monarch of a kingdom which
Charlemagne conquered in 774.

[Sidenote: Rother.] Rother established his capital at Bari, a great seaport
in Apulia; but although his wealth was unbounded and his kingdom extensive,
he was far from happy, for he had neither wife nor child to share his home.
Seeing his loneliness, one of his courtiers, Duke Berchther (Berchtung) of
Meran, the father of twelve stalwart sons, advised him to seek a wife; and
when Rother declared that he knew of no princess pretty enough to please
his fastidious taste, the courtier produced the portrait of Oda, daughter
of Constantine, Emperor of the East. Rother fell desperately in love with
this princess at first sight. In vain Berchther warned him that the emperor
had the unpleasant habit of beheading all his daughter's would-be suitors;
Rother declared that he must make an attempt to secure this peerless bride,
and was only with great difficulty persuaded to resign the idea