THE SCENE: Perctarit took a big chance when he appeared before King Grimuald to beg forgiveness for their earlier enmity. But while Grimauld seems eager to reconcile at first, he secretly changed his mind, forcing Perctarit to form a plan for a daring escape from a city intent on his death.
THE TEXT: Meanwhile Perctarit arrived and went forward to Grimuald, and when he attempted to fall down at his feet, the king graciously held him back and raised him up to receive his kiss. Perctarit said to him: “I am your servant. Knowing you to be most Christian and pious, although I can live among the heathen, yet relying upon your mercy I have come to your feet.” And the king with an oath, as he was wont, promised him again saying: “By Him who caused me to be born, since you have come to me trusting me, you will suffer nothing evil in any way but I will so provide for you that you can live becomingly.” Then offering him a lodging in a spacious house, he bade him have a rest after the toil of the journey, ordering that food and whatever things were necessary should be supplied to him bountifully at public expense.
But what cannot an evil tongue interrupt? For presently certain wicked flatterers coming to the king declared to him that unless he quickly deprived Perctarit of life, he would himself at once lose his kingdom with his life, asserting that the whole city had gathered around Perctarit for this purpose. When he heard these things, Grimuald became too credulous and forgetting what he had promised, he was straightway incited to the murder of the innocent Perctarit and took counsel in what way he might deprive him of life on the following day, since now the hour was very late. Finally in the evening he sent to him divers dishes, also special wines and various kinds of drinks so that he could intoxicate him, to the end that relaxed by much drinking during the night and buried in wine, he could think nothing of his safety.
One who had been of his father’s train, when he brought a dish from the king to this Perctarit, put his head under the table as if to salute him and announced to him secretly that the king was arranging to kill him. And Perctarit straightway directed his cup-bearer that he should give him to drink in a silver drinking vessel nothing but a little water. And when those who brought him drinks of different kinds from the king asked him upon the command of the king to drink the whole cup, he promised to drink it all in honor of the king, and took a little water from the silver cup. When the servants announced to the king that he was drinking insatiably, the king merrily answered: “Let that drunkard drink; but tomorrow he will spill out the same wines mixed with blood.” And Perctarit quickly called Unulf to him and announced to him the design of the king concerning his death. And Unulf straightway sent a servant to his house to bring him bed clothing and ordered his couch to be put next to the couch of Perctarit. Without delay king Grimuald directed his attendants that they should guard the house in which Perctarit was reposing so that he could not escape in any way.
When supper was finished and all had departed and Perctarit only had remained with Unulf and Perctarit’s valet, who in any case were entirely faithful to him, they disclosed their plan to him and begged him to flee while the valet would pretend as long as possible that his master was sleeping within that bed chamber. And when he had promised to do this, Unulf put his own bed clothes and a mattress and a bear’s skin upon the back and neck of Perctarit and began to drive him out of the door according to the plan, as if he were a slave from the country, offering him many insults, and did not cease moreover to strike him with a cudgel from above and urge him on, so that driven and struck he often fell to the ground. And when the attendants of the king who had been put on guard asked that same Unulf why this was, “that worthless slave,” he says, ” has put my bed in the chamber of that drunken Perctarit who is so full of wine that he lies there as if he were dead. But it is enough that I have followed his madness up to the present time. From now on, during the life of our lord the king, I will stay in my own house.”
When they heard these things and believed what they heard to be true, they were delighted, and making way for the two, they let pass both him and Perctarit, whom they thought was a slave and who had his head covered that he should not be recognized. And while they were going away, that most faithful valet bolted the door carefully and remained inside alone. Unulf indeed let Perctarit down by a rope from the wall at a corner which is on the side of the river Ticinum and collected what companions he could, and they, having seized some horses they had found in a pasture, proceeded that same night to the city of Asta in which the friends of Perctarit were staying, and those who were still rebels against Grimuald. Thence Perctarit made his way as quickly as possible to the city of Turin, and afterwards passed across the boundaries of Italy and came to the country of the Franks. Thus God Almighty by His merciful arrangement delivered an innocent man from death and kept from offense a king who desired in his heart to do good.
– The History of the Langobards, Paul the Deacon, 8th Century AD
