Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

The news of Isernia’s murder was brought to Joan by Bertrand of Artois, who had learned also of Andrew’s confirmation as King by the Pope, as well as of the fact that a list of persons to be summarily dealt with had been drawn up by the Hungarian; and, supremely, that his, Bertrand of Artois’, name was the first upon the list.

This last item it was that finally removed any lingering scruples from Joan’s heart; for she loved Bertrand with all the passionate recklessness of her fiery nature, and the thought that his handsome head should roll upon the board of a scaffold maddened her against Andrew.

“That decides it,” she is said to have declared to her lover. “The man must die.”

And, when he left her, Bertrand of Artois went out to gather together the others who were also of his conspiracy in the Queen’s service—Robert of Cabano, and the Counts of Terlizzi and Morcone; Charles of Artois, the father of Bertrand himself; Godfrey of Marsano, High Admiral of the realm and Count of Squillace; and the Count of Catanzaro. With these men were allied several women—notably Catherine of Taranto, Empress of Constantinople, mother of that Louis whose beauty was splendid like the sun; Filippa, the mother of Robert of Cabano and of his sisters, the Countesses of Morcone and Terlizzi; those two dusky beauties themselves; and finally Donna Cancia, the laughing girl-demon and bosom-friend of the Queen.

To these was joined that same Tommaso Pace, valet to Prince Andrew, with whom the notary, Master Nicholas of Melazzo, had of late maintained the closest of relations in obedience to the orders of Charles of Durazzo. No wonder, then, that within an hour after the conference of the plotters Charles of Durazzo was in possession of every detail of it, as well as of the names of the plotters themselves.

Now, before the actual ceremony of Andrew of Hungary’s proclamation as King could take place, it was unavoidable that a few days should be devoted to making all suitable preparations for that event; for, so soon as Isernia’s killing had become known, Andrew had caused it to be announced that the murder was not a murder at all in reality, but merely a legal execution duly carried out by the person—a certain Conrad de Gotis—empowered to do so by Andrew himself as King of Naples by favour of the Pope. The unrest and uproar caused by this news in the city were such that Andrew had thought it prudent to retire thence into the neighbouring country until the time were come when, as crowned and anointed King, he should be endowed with a real and efficient majesty, the which he was as yet very far from possessing. In this intention, therefore, he had given out that he would go with the Court for a while upon a hunting expedition into the district between Capua Aversa.

Charles of Durazzo received a personal invitation from Prince Andrew to join him and the others of the party, but declined on the ground of his wife’s being extremely indisposed; this, the last meeting on earth of the two men, took place on the 19th of August in the year 1345, towards evening in a hall of the Castel Nuovo; it is said that, in declining Andrew’s invitation, Charles begged him to accept a very fine falcon from among those for which his perch was justly celebrated. The falcon presented by Charles to Andrew may have been a jer-falcon; but I cannot help thinking that, in all likelihood, the bird was a peregrine from the cliffs between Sorrento and Amalfi. With Charles was also Nicholas of Melazzo, from whom he had just been receiving the details of the Queen’s conspiracy; and Charles, as he himself understood triumphantly, was thenceforth to be master of the situation in the Kingdom of Naples.

The dawn of the next day saw a numerous cavalcade pass out from the gate of the Castel Nuovo and file slowly down through the city and so out into the misty lowlands towards Melito, where the sport was to begin. The illustrious company was headed by Andrew of Hungary in person, and beside him rode Queen Joan on a white palfrey; whilst close behind them pressed the throng of those who had sworn to return to Naples only when Andrew should have ceased to breathe. Never before had Andrew shown himself so gay, so responsive to all the delights of life and friendship as on that morning; although he knew that he, as well as the men who rode behind him, had death in his heart—the death of many among those very men who were now preparing to consummate their treachery by murdering him. But they, like Andrew of Hungary, were loud in talk and laughter, exchanging jests incessantly amongst themselves and even, now and again, with their victim himself as he turned in his saddle and threw back to them a challenge of wits.

Of all that festive throng two alone rode silent and preoccupied. Both were women. One of them, the Queen, kept her eyes fixed steadfastly on the landscape before her, from which the vapours were being rapidly scattered and dispelled by the sunrise, so that none might read her thoughts; whilst the other was an elderly German called Isolda, once the nurse of Andrew and now his mother’s ambassador, who, like Queen Joan, was too occupied with her own reflections to pay attention to what was going on about her. For old Isolda’s heart was heavy with an indefinable presentiment of some evil that threatened her beloved foster-child; and her powerlessness to analyse or to avert it was frightful to the faithful soul of her.

And so the August day grew to its full, hot and windless, and drew on to afternoon and sank to airless evening, whilst hawk after hawk soared into the grey-blue sky all a-quiver with the heat, after heron and duck; or, else, hung poised there, hovering a little before swooping down upon crouching hare or rabbit or partridge. But the main feature of the sport was the hunting of wild boars with hound and spear; at which Andrew of Hungary is said to have been an expert.