And when Nicholas of Melazzo had concluded his testimony, he was sentenced, with his accomplice, Tommaso Pace, to be dragged at the tail of a horse throughout the town, and then hanged by the neck in the Mercato, the great market square in which Conradin of Hohenstaufen and Frederick of Baden had been decapitated by order of Charles I of Anjou in 1268, after the battle of Tagliacozzo. It was in this same square of the Mercato that Masaniello’s rebellion broke out in the seventeenth century; and here took place, also, the executions of the misguided Liberals in 1799.
The sentence upon the notary and the valet having been forthwith carried into effect, the other prisoners were on the following day taken out of the Castel Nuovo and conveyed on to a galley in the bay, their hands tied behind their backs, and having each a hook passed through their tongue to prevent them from calling out to the crowd, in passing, any mention of some forbidden name. When they had been tortured on the galley—a precaution for which the Count of Monte Scaglioso would seem to have been answerable—and their depositions against one another duly written down and signed, needless to say they were, one and all, condemned to be burned alive.
The next morning the crowd (composed mainly of descendants of the slaves of the long-ago Romans) filled all the ways from the prison to the Mercato, where on the side towards the Church of Sant’ Eligio—the spot on which executions usually took place being before the other church in the piazza, the ancient Church of Santa Croce—was erected a huge pile of wood and many bundles of twigs about a number of posts with staples to them. This was the pyre.
From an early hour the populace had been swarming the city, tossed and churned hither and thither by its ravening for blood—no matter of whom—and by its impatient excitement for the gratification of its lust of cruelty. At last, however, its waiting was rewarded, and there went up to the heavens a roar of pleasure as the prison-gates were thrown open and the spectacle began of the procession to the Mercato. I need not describe it, save to say that all along the way the condemned, each in a separate cart, were tortured in a revolting manner with scourges, razors, and red-hot pincers, so that several succumbed to their sufferings before reaching the pyre intended for them. Amongst those who died thus was Robert of Cabano, Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom, and the only one of them all who refused to utter the least sound by which to betray his torments to the mob. And when, finally, the dying unfortunates were all made fast to the stakes and fire was put to them, that same mob rushed over the intervening soldiers, extinguishing the flames, and seizing the still palpitating bodies, tore them in pieces for the sake of the bones, with which to make whistles and dagger-handles.
CHAPTER XIII THE VAMPIRE-MONARCH FROM HUNGARY
This detestable butchery, strictly in accord with the criminal procedure of the day, was but the beginning of a reign of terror in the city and realm of Naples. The murder of Andrew of Hungary was soon no more than a pretext to serve Charles of Durazzo for ridding himself of all persons who, in any way, dared to manifest their disapproval of his assumption of the Dictatorship of the Kingdom, or to murmur against his unbearable tyranny. Nor was it long before Louis of Taranto, who by now had completely won the heart of Joan, and was seeking to obtain from the Pope the dispensations necessary to make lawful their irregular union, began to consider the high-handed and arrogant conduct of Charles—whom and all whose works he abominated—as an intolerable affront to himself. In consequence, having armed his retainers and increased his forces as much as he could, Louis raised his standard as King of Naples and Jerusalem, and bade his loyal subjects rally to him in opposition to the Albanian usurper of his sovereign rights.
In this manner there broke out a regular civil war throughout the country; now the victory inclined to Louis, and now to Charles and his ally, Robert of Taranto, the elder brother of Louis and the disappointed suitor of Joan. But a day soon came when there was no longer left to Louis any more money; and without money he was naturally helpless to pay his troops. Both he and Joan were in despair, when his mother the Empress of Constantinople, who was living with them, showed the true metal of which she was made.
Bidding the young couple take heart, Catherine of Taranto promised solemnly that, if they would but lend her the half of their forces and would content themselves with remaining for a week on the defensive in the Castel Nuovo, she would bring them at the end of that time a treasure such as they had never yet even imagined. To this proposal they perforce consented; and the Empress, leading half her son’s army, marched boldly out from Naples by the Porta Capuana, along the road towards Benevento, and so came by way of the Caudine Forks to the castle of Saint Agatha of the Goths, where Queen Joan’s former lover, Bertrand of Artois, and his father, old Count Charles, were still skulking from the law.
Now when Count Charles perceived that troops were preparing to besiege him, and recognized their leader as the Empress, he sent out messengers to inquire her intentions in coming thus with a large force into his neighbourhood; to which Catherine replied, speaking as follows—her speech is translated literally: