And so, between them all, they dragged Prince Andrew to a balcony overlooking the garden of the cloister, and, lifting him up, threw him over, so that he was hanged. And when they knew that he was dead they let go of the rope; and the body fell down into the moonlit garden, and they went away to their beds.
But the din of the murder had awakened Andrew’s old nurse Isolda, who now, looking out of her window, saw him lying there, and thought that he was asleep. Going to the Queen’s room, the door of which was fastened on the inside, she called out to Joan, saying that the Prince was asleep in the garden. To which Joan only made reply, “Let him sleep,” and would not speak further. Then Isolda went and awakened the monks and made them go with her into the garden to where Andrew lay on the grass; and when she saw that he was dead she rent the night with her lamentations. And two of the monks knelt down by the corpse, one at the head and the other at the feet, and said the Penitential Psalms for the repose of the Prince’s soul, while two other monks went up to the door of the Queen’s room and asked of her through it:
“Oh, Queen, what are your commands that we should do with the dead body of your husband?”
But she would not return any answer to them; so they went away again, very greatly affrighted and troubled in spirit. And later they sent others of their company once and twice on the same business; but Joan either would not or could not speak with them, until at last the townspeople of Aversa gathered about the monastery gates began to howl and to murmur amongst themselves, calling the Queen a murderess, and saying that she was afraid to look upon the face of her dead husband. Nor did she show herself at all to them; but, later in the day, was borne out of Aversa and so back to Naples in a closed litter guarded by horsemen.
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.