And now, at last, the tempest which had been brewing for so long in silence broke into lightning over the head of Joan.
Charles of Durazzo, who as husband to the heir to the throne, was now, next to Joan herself, the most considerable person in the kingdom—and, further, by reason of all he knew, far the most powerful—now took the chief direction of its affairs.
After leaving the body of Andrew of Hungary where it lay exposed for two whole days to the battering of the elements—for the weather had suddenly turned wet and gusty—at the foot of the monastery wall at Aversa, in order thereby to arouse to the full the compassion of the populace that flocked to behold it, as well as to arouse their indignation against the murderers, Charles ordered the remains to be brought in state to the Cathedral of San Gennaro in the city. There having rallied to him the dead Prince’s Hungarian barons, together with the Count of Altamura, he met the funeral procession and caused the coffin containing the body to be placed upon a catafalque, by which he took his stand.
“Oh, people of Naples, gentle and simple alike, behold your King, miserably strangled by his murderers!” he cried, drawing his sword and laying it upon the coffin. “I appeal to you to help me avenge him!”
And immediately the vast church rang and echoed with the roar of those to whom he addressed himself.
“Vengeance!” they bellowed, forgetting in their desire for savagery how, but a short while before, they had groaned beneath the insolent brutality of that same Andrew of Hungary. “Vengeance, vengeance, vengeance!”—and from out the sombre interior of the Cathedral the roaring gushed in a flood of terrible sound, filling all the streets with its clamour for blood. And, when the funeral was over, and the coffin had been put away in the place prepared for it in the left transept of the building, Duke Charles withdrew once more to his own palace, well pleased with what he had done, there to apply his energies to the work in hand.
Now it so happened that several of those who had conspired with Joan to make an end of her husband had lost no time in claiming the various rewards that they deemed to be due to them from her. Filippa Cabano and Robert, her son, as well as her daughters of Terlizzi and Morcone and their husbands, redoubled in arrogance and in the daring of their clamour for honours and money; whilst Cancia, their lascivious instrument and the handmaid of their Sovereign, now secured from punishment by that Sovereign’s impotence even to protest against her shamelessness, turned the Castel Nuovo into a place without a name. But of all Joan’s fellow-conspirators the one who asked her the most staggering price was her aunt, Catherine of Taranto, Empress of Constantinople, who asked that she should consent to announce her betrothal to Robert of Taranto, the Empress’ eldest son. To this insolent demand Joan could only summon sufficient strength to reply by asking a delay of three days, in which to make up her mind upon the subject; which delay was granted her, the Empress only stipulating that Prince Robert, in the meantime, should be allowed to take up his quarters in the Castel Nuovo and to see and speak with Joan at least once a day.
No sooner, though, did it reach the ears of Charles of Durazzo that Robert of Taranto was installed in the Castel Nuovo as a preliminary to his betrothal to the Queen than the Duke flung himself on to a horse and galloped furiously to the castle. On entering Joan’s presence, he spoke briefly and to the point. To begin with, she must create him Duke of Calabria in his own right, thereby acknowledging him to be the heir to the throne as the husband of her sister. And, as to Robert of Taranto, Charles absolutely forbade her to marry him or any other man without his express permission; threatening that, if she dared to do otherwise, he would reveal to the whole world his knowledge of her participation in the murder of Andrew of Hungary. This he did because he had no intention, whatsoever, of allowing her to marry again and so providing, possibly, a direct heir to the throne other than his wife and himself. And again, Joan, helpless to refuse beneath her burden of remorse and of terror both for herself and for others, had no choice but to temporise as best she could.
There was now no other course open to her than that of an explanation upon the subject of her situation with the Empress of Constantinople.