She followed him home, concealing her fears, and although she never seemed blithe and happy, she obeyed her husband so implicitly that he fancied her a devoted wife.  He was so accustomed to Rosamund’s ready compliance with his every wish that one day, after winning a great victory over the Ostrogoths, and conquering a province in northern Italy (where he took up his abode, and which bears the name of his race), he bade her fill her father’s skull with wine and pledge him by drinking first out of this repulsive cup.

[Sidenote:  Rosamund’s revolt.] The queen hesitated, but, impelled by Alboin’s threatening glances and his mailed hand raised to strike her, she tremblingly filled the cup and raised it to her lips.  But then, instead of humbly presenting it to her lord, she haughtily dashed it at his feet, and left the hall, saying that though she had obeyed him, she would never again live with him as his wife,—­a declaration which the warriors present secretly applauded, for they all thought that their king had been wantonly cruel toward his beautiful wife.

While Alboin 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.