The Historical Nights' Entertainment, Rafael Sabatini [freenovel24 .txt] 📗

the populace, which had accepted his general

filthiness as the outward sign of holiness. His irruption occasioned

so much trouble and confusion that in the end the Pope intervened,

in his quality as Lord Paramount - Naples being a fief of Holy

Church - and appointed a legate to rule the kingdom during

Giovanna’s minority.

 

The Hungarians, with Andreas’s brother, King Ludwig of Hungary, at

their head, now appealed to the Papal Court of Avignon for a Bull

commanding the joint coronation of Andreas and Giovanna, which

would be tantamount to placing the government in the hands of

Andreas. The Neapolitans, headed by the Princes of the Blood - who,

standing next in succession, had also their own interests to consider

clamoured that Giovanna alone should be crowned.

 

In this pass were the affairs of the kingdom when Charles of Durazzo,

who had stood watchful and aloof, carefully weighing the chances,

resolved at last to play that dangerous game of his. He began by

the secret abduction of Maria of Anjou, his own cousin and Giovanna’s

sister, a child of fourteen. He kept her concealed for a month in

his palace, what time he obtained from the Pope, through the good

offices of his uncle the Cardinal of Perigord, a dispensation to

overcome the barrier of consanguinity. That dispensation obtained,

Charles married the girl publicly under the eyes of all Naples,

and by the marriage - to which the bride seemed nowise unwilling

- became, by virtue of his wife, next heir to the crown of Naples.

 

That was his opening move. His next was to write to his obliging

uncle the Cardinal of Perigord, whose influence at Avignon was very

considerable, urging him to prevail upon Pope Clement VI not to

sign the Bull in favour of Andreas and the joint coronation.

 

Now, the high-handed action of Charles in marrying Maria of Anjou

had very naturally disposed Giovanna against him; further, it had

disposed against him those Princes of the Blood who were next in

the succession, and upon whom he had stolen a march by this

strengthening of his own claims. It is inevitable to assume that

he had counted precisely upon this to afford him the pretext that

he sought - he, a Neapolitan prince - to ally himself with the

Hungarian intruder.

 

Under any other circumstances his advances must have been viewed

with suspicion by Andreas, and still more by the crafty Friar

Robert. But, under the circumstances which his guile had created,

he was received with open arms by the Hungarian party, and his

defection from the Court of Giovanna was counted a victory by the

supporters of Andreas. He protested his good-will towards Andreas,

and proclaimed his hatred of Giovanna’s partisans, who poisoned her

mind against her husband. He hunted and drank with Andreas - whose

life seems to have been largely made up of hunting and drinking -

and pandered generally to the rather gross tastes of this foreigner,

whom in his heart he despised for a barbarian.

 

>From being a boon companion, Charles very soon became a counsellor

to the young Prince, and the poisonous advice that he gave seemed

shrewd and good, even to Friar Robert.

 

“Meet hostility with hostility, ride ruthlessly upon your own way,

showing yourself confident of the decision in your favour that the

Pope must ultimately give. For bear ever in your mind that you are

King of Naples, not by virtue of your marriage with Giovanna, but

in your own right, Giovanna being but the offspring of the usurping

branch.”

 

The pale bovine eyes of Andreas would kindle into something like

intelligence, and a flush would warm his stolid countenance. He

was a fair-haired young giant, white-skinned and well-featured, but

dull, looking, with cold, hard eyes suggesting the barbarian that

he was considered by the cultured Neapolitans, and that he certainly

looked by contrast with them. Friar Robert supporting the Duke of

Durazzo’s advice, Andreas did not hesitate to act upon it; of his

own authority he delivered prisoners from gaol, showered honours

upon his Hungarian followers and upon such Neapolitan barons as

Count Altamura, who was ill-viewed at Court, and generally set the

Queen at defiance. The inevitable result, upon which again the

subtle Charles had counted, was to exasperate a group of her most

prominent nobles into plotting the ruin of Andreas.

 

It was a good beginning, and unfortunately Giovanna’s own behaviour

afforded Charles the means of further speeding up his game.

 

The young Queen was under the governance of Filippa the Catanese,

an evil woman, greedy of power. This Filippa, once a washerwoman,

had in her youth been chosen for her splendid health to be the

foster-mother of Giovanna’s father. Beloved of her foster-child,

she had become perpetually installed at Court, married to a wealthy

Moor named Cabane, who was raised to the dignity of Grand Seneschal

of the kingdom, whereby the sometime washerwoman found herself

elevated to the rank of one of the first ladies of Naples. She must

have known how to adapt herself to her new circumstances, otherwise

she would hardly have been appointed, as she was upon the death of

her foster-son, governess to his infant daughters. Later, to ensure

her hold upon the young Queen, and being utterly unscrupulous in her

greed of power, she had herself contrived that her son, Robert of

Cabane, became Giovanna’s lover.

 

One of Giovanna’s first acts upon her grandfather’s death had been

to create this Robert Count of Evoli, and this notwithstanding that

in the mean time he had been succeeded in her favour by the handsome

young Bertrand d’Artois. This was the group - the Catanese, her

son, and Bertrand - that, with the Princes of the Blood, governed

the Queen’s party.

 

With what eyes Andreas may have looked upon all this we have no

means of determining. Possibly, engrossed as he was with his hawks

and his hounds, he may have been stupidly blind to his own dishonour,

at least as far as Bertrand was concerned. Another than Charles

might have chosen the crude course of opening his eyes to it. But

Charles was too far-seeing. Precipitancy was not one of his faults.

His next move must be dictated by the decision of Avignon regarding

the coronation.

 

This decision came in July of 1345, and it fell like a thunderbolt

upon the Court. The Pope had pronounced in favour of Andreas by

granting the Bull for the joint coronation of Andreas and Giovanna.

 

This was check to Charles. His uncle the Cardinal of Perigord had

done his utmost to oppose the measure, but he had been overborne in

the end by Ludwig of Hungary, who had settled the matter by the

powerful argument that he was himself the rightful heir to the crown

of Naples, and that he relinquished his claim in favour of his

younger brother. He had backed the argument by the payment to the

Pope of the enormous sum, for those days, of one hundred thousand

gold crowns, and the issue, obscure hitherto, had immediately become

clear to the Papal Court.

 

It was check to Charles, as I have said. But Charles braced himself,

and considered the counter-move that should give him the advantage.

He went to congratulate Andreas, and found him swollen with pride

and arrogance in his triumph.

 

“Be welcome, Charles,” he hailed Durazzo. “I am not the man to

forget those who have stood my friends whilst my power was undecided.”

 

“For your own sake,” said the smooth Charles, as he stepped back

from that brotherly embrace, “I trust you’ll not forget those who

have been your enemies, and who, being desperate now, may take

desperate means to avert your coronation.”

 

The pale eyes of the Hungarian glittered.

 

“Of whom do you speak?”

 

Charles smoothed his black beard thoughtfully, his dark eyes narrowed

and pensive. There must be a victim, to strike fear into Giovanna’s

friends and stir them to Charles’s purposes.

 

“Why, first and foremost, I should place Giovanna’s counsellor

Isernia, that man of law whose evil counsels have hurt your rights

as king. Next come - “

 

But here Charles craftily paused and looked away, a man at fault.

 

“Next?” cried Andreas. “Who next? Speak out!” The Duke shrugged.

 

“By the Passion, there is no lack of others. You have enemies to

spare among the Queen’s friends.”

 

Andreas paled under his faint tan. He flung back his crimson robe

as if he felt the heat, and stood forth, lithe as a wrestler, in

his close-fitting cote-hardie and hose of violet silk.

 

“No need, indeed, to name them,” he said fiercely.

 

“None,” Charles agreed. “But the most dangerous is Isernia. Whilst

he lives you walk amid swords. His death may spread a panic that

will paralyze the others.”

 

He would say no more, knowing that he had said enough to send

Andreas, scowling and sinister, to sow terror in hearts that guilt

must render uneasy now, amongst which hearts be sure that he

counted Giovanna’s own.

 

Andreas took counsel with Friar Robert. Touching Isernia, there

was evidence and to spare that he was dangerous, and so Isernia

fell on the morrow to an assassin’s sword as he was in the very

act of leaving the Castel Nuovo, and it was Charles himself who

bore word of it to the Court, and so plunged it into consternation.

 

They walked in the cool of evening in the pleasant garden of the

Castel Nuovo, when Charles came upon them and touched the stalwart

shoulder of Bertrand d’Artois. Bertrand the favourite eyed him

askance, mistrusting and disliking him for his association with

Andreas.

 

“The Hungarian boar,” said Charles, “is sharpening his tusks now

that his authority is assured by the Holy Father.”

 

“Who cares?” sneered Bertrand.

 

“Should you care if I added that already he has blooded them?”

 

Bertrand changed countenance. The Duke explained himself.

 

“He has made a beginning upon Giacomo d’ Isernia. Ten minutes ago

he was stabbed to death within a stone’s throw of the castle.” So

Charles unburdened himself of his news. “A beginning, no more.”

 

“My God!” said Bertrand. “D’ Isernia! Heaven rest him.” And

devoutly he crossed himself.

 

“Heaven will rest some more of you if you suffer Andreas of Hungary

to be its instrument,” said Charles, his lips grimly twisted.

 

“Do you threaten?”

 

“Nay, man; be not so hot and foolish. I warn. I know his mood.

I know what he intends.”

 

“You ever had his confidence,” said Bertrand, sneering.

 

“Until this hour I had. But there’s an end to that. I am a Prince

of Naples, and I’ll not bend the knee to a barbarian. He was well

enough to hunt with and drink with, so long as he was Duke of

Calabria with no prospect of being more. But that he should become

my King, and that our lady Giovanna should be no more than a queen

consort - ” He made a gesture of ineffable disgust.

 

Bertrand’s eyes kindled. He gripped the other’s arm, and drew him

along under a trellis of vines that formed a green cloister about

the walls.

 

“Why, here is great news for our Queen,” he cried. “It will rejoice

her, my lord, to know you are loyal to her.”

 

“That is no matter,” he replied. “What matters is that you should

be warned - you, yourself in particular, and Evoli. No doubt there

will be others, too. But the Hungarian’s confidences went no

further.”

 

Bertrand had come to a standstill. He stared at Charles, and slowly

the colour left his face.

 

“Me?” he said, a finger on his heart.

 

“Aye, you. You will be the next. But not until the crown is firmly

on his