ver whither the most
illustrious queen had turned her steps, fearful, he made
report of the matter to King Berengarius. And he, at once
filled with exceeding wrath, forthwith sent his dependants
everywhere around, commanding them not to overlook any small
place, but cautiously to examine every hiding-place, lest
perchance the queen might be lying hid in any one. And he
himself followed with a band of stout-hearted troops as if
to overcome some fierce enemy in battle. And rapidly did he
pass on his way through the self-same corn-field in the
which the lady whom he sought was lurking in the bent-back
furrows, hidden beneath the wings of Ceres. Hither and
thither forsooth he traversed the very spot where she lay,
burdened with no little fear, and although, with great
effort, he essayed with outstretched spear to part the corn
around, yet he discovered not her whom by the grace of
Christ it concealed.

From the sheltering corn Adelheid effects her escape, and after weary
wandering, reaches the Castle of Canossa, the stronghold of the Counts
of Tuscany. Any one who has visited this now ruined castle, some
twenty miles from Parma, will remember the threadlike way between
rocks covered with brambles, by which its eyrie height is approached.
Up this steep track the queen, fearful of any pause, hastens, and
finds a welcome and ready help. The Count becomes her champion, and
appeals on her behalf to the Emperor Otho. The latter, glad of an
excuse to further his cause in Italy, descends with his troops into
the Lombard plain, weds the beautiful Adelheid, and receives the
formal cession of the so-called kingdom of Italy from Berengarius and
his son, whose power had ebbed away in their futile attempts to
control their feudatories.

Roswitha's thrilling narrative is amplified by the graphic account
recorded by St. Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, Queen Adelheid's friend and
one-time confessor. In this he tells us that during Adelheid's
imprisonment in a castle on the Lago di Garda, her chaplain Martin
succeeds in making a hole in the wall, through which the queen and her
maidservant, disguised as men, creep. He does not recount the episode
of the hiding in the corn, but relates another equally stirring
adventure. He tells us that, in fleeing from their persecutor to the
safety of Canossa, the fugitives become involved in a swamp. After two
days, they are rescue