The events here briefly described had taken place while Grimoald was
engaged in the Greek wars of his patron, Duke Arigil. When he succeeded
the latter in the ducal chair, the struggle between Bertarit and
Godebert was going on, and the new Duke of Benevento declared in favor
of the latter, who was his personal friend.
A scheme of treachery, of a singular character, put an end to their
friendship and to the life of Godebert. A man who was skilled in the
arts of dissimulation, and who was secretly in the pay of Bertarit,
persuaded Godebert that his seeming friend, Duke Grimoald, was really
his enemy, and was plotting his destruction. He told the same story to
Grimoald, making him believe that Godebert was his secret foe. In proof
of his words he told each of them that the other wore armor beneath his
clothes, through fear of assassination by his assumed friend.
The suspicion thus artfully aroused produced the very state of things
which the agent of mischief had declared to exist. Each of the friends
put on armor, as a protection against treachery from the other, and when
they sought to test the truth of the spy's story it seemed fully
confirmed.
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