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.
At dusk the royal party bent its way towards the town of Aversa, there to pass the night in the monastery of San Pietro a Maiella, a house of Celestine monks; for there was at hand no other building capable of sheltering so many persons and their horses. The choice of a fitting asylum for the Queen and her Consort and their followers was the business of the Grand Seneschal, Robert of Cabano; and he it was who undertook the necessary arrangements. By his orders a bed was prepared for Joan and her husband in a room at the end of a corridor on the third floor of the monastery and about sixty feet above the ground.
That night, the monks having retired long before to their cells, the great refectory of the monastery rang with the jests and laughter of the royal supper-party. Wine flowed in abundance—and none drank more deeply than did Andrew of Hungary; until Robert of Cabano rose and said that a draught of the same wine ought by rights to be given to each of the Hungarian sentries posted outside the monastery to compensate them for keeping their cheerless watch outside in the darkness. Which proposal was carried out with loud applause in which the sentries, who had been called into the hall to drink the health of the royal pair, joined heartily, so that the place echoed to the thunderous shouts of “Long live their Majesties, the King and Queen of Naples!”
This feasting and good fellowship were prolonged to a late hour, until at length the conspirators became impatient of Andrew’s wakefulness. Bertrand of Artois remarked pointedly that the chances were against any of them rising betimes in the morning after sitting up so late the night before. To which Andrew answered scornfully that, speaking for himself, an hour or two of sleep was amply sufficient, and that in this he hoped he was not alone. But when the Count of Terlizzi expressed a doubt of Andrew’s being able to set an example of early rising under the circumstances, the Prince gave a challenge to all present to be up as soon as he in the morning; after which he withdrew with the Queen to their apartment, and silence soon fell over all the building.
Towards two o’clock there came a knock on the door of the royal bed-chamber, followed by a second and a third; at the last of which Andrew sprang out of bed, calling out that he was awake and was coming at once. It is said that Joan, who had not closed an eyelid, was minded to warn her husband of his danger, but thought better of it, and kept silence whilst he drew on his clothes and, going to the door, opened it—to find himself confronted by a group of men, including his valet, Tommaso Pace, who had knocked on the door, and Nicholas of Melazzo.
On the instant that Andrew showed himself, Bertrand of Artois, as some say, seized him by his long hair and tried to pull back his head; but he contrived to free himself, exclaiming, “This is a base jest!” Then, perceiving that the intentions of the group were really hostile, he endeavoured to retreat into the room for his sword, but was prevented from doing so by Nicholas of Melazzo, who thrust his dagger for a bolt through the staples of the door, whilst others, led by Bertrand of Artois and Robert of Cabano, flung themselves upon the Prince like a pack of wolves, trying to pull him down. But Andrew, now fighting with all his strength, threw them off, and fled from them, shouting loudly for help, and looking for an avenue of escape.
There was none, however, to be found; and at length, turning and twisting from his assailants, Andrew slipped and fell; so that Bertrand of Artois, the nearest of them, was enabled to grapple with him on the floor, calling for a certain rope with which to strangle him. This rope, which was of silk twisted with gold threads, they had had made on purpose to kill the Prince with, because of a talisman that he was said to have received from his mother that was held to render him invulnerable to steel or poison. It seems to me probable that Robert of Cabano had the rope ready in his hands, and that between them he and Bertrand of Artois contrived to place it about the Prince’s neck; for, as Gravena tells us, when Robert of Cabano saw that one of their lot, the Count of Terlizzi, was turning away from the horrid scene, he made him take hold of the rope and help them to draw it tight, saying: “What are you doing, my brother-in-law? Here, take hold—the rope is long enough for each of us to put a hand to it. What we want are accomplices, not witnesses!”