第26章 CHAPTER V(3)

"Mother,you are with child."

"What!"cried Agnes,with a loud cry,which broke her very heart.

"O God,forgive him!Charles,your mother forgives and blesses you in death."Charles fell upon her neck,desperately crying for help:he would now have gladly saved her at the cost of his life,but it was too late.

He uttered one cry that came from his heart,and was found stretched out upon his mother's corpse.

Strange comments were made at the court on the death of the Duchess of Durazzo and her doctor's disappearance;but there was no doubt at all that grief and gloom were furrowing wrinkles on Charles's brow,which was already sad enough.Catherine alone knew the terrible cause of her nephew's depression,for to her it was very plain that the duke at one blow had killed his mother and her physician.But she had never expected a reaction so sudden and violent in a man who shrank before no crime.She had thought Charles capable of everything except remorse.His gloomy,self absorbed silence seemed a bad augury for her plans.She had desired to cause trouble for him in his own family,so that he might have no time to oppose the marriage of her son with the queen;but she had shot beyond her mark,and Charles,started thus on the terrible path of crime,had now broken through the bonds of his holiest affections,and gave himself up to his bad passions with feverish ardour and a savage desire for revenge.Then Catherine had recourse to gentleness and submission.

She gave her son to understand that there was only one way of obtaining the queen's hand,and that was by flattering the ambition of Charles and in some sort submitting himself to his patronage.

Robert of Tarentum understood this,and ceased making court to Joan,who received his devotion with cool kindness,and attached himself closely to Charles,paying him much the same sort of respect and deference that he himself had affected for Andre,when the thought was first in his mind of causing his ruin.But the Duke of Durazzo was by no means deceived as to the devoted friendship shown towards him by the heir of the house of Tarentum,and pretending to be deeply touched by the unexpected change of feeling,he all the time kept a strict guard on Robert's actions.

An event outside all human foresight occurred to upset the calculations of the two cousins.One day while they were out together on horseback,as they often were since their pretended reconciliation,Louis of Tarentum,Robert's youngest brother,who had always felt for Joan a chivalrous,innocent love,--a love which a young man of twenty is apt to lock up in his heart as a secret treasure,--Louis,we say,who had held aloof from the infamous family conspiracy and had not soiled his hands with Andre's blood,drawn on by an irrepressible passion,all at once appeared at the gates of Castel Nuovo;and while his brother was wasting precious hours in asking for a promise of marriage,had the bridge raised and gave the soldiers strict orders to admit no one.Then,never troubling himself about Charles's anger or Robert's jealousy,he hurried to the queen's room,and there,says Domenico Gravina,without any preamble,the union was consummated.

On returning from his ride,Robert,astonished that the bridge was not at once lowered for him,at first loudly called upon the soldiers on guard at the fortress,threatening severe punishment for their unpardonable negligence;but as the gates did not open and the soldiers made no sign of fear or regret,he fell into a violent fit of rage,and swore he would hang the wretches like dogs for hindering his return home.But the Empress of Constantinople,terrified at the bloody quarrel beginning between the two brothers,went alone and on foot to her son,and making use of her maternal authority to beg him to master his feelings,there in the presence of the crowd that had come up hastily to witness the strange scene,she related in a low voice all that had passed in his absence.

A roar as of a wounded tiger escaped from Robert's breast:all but blind with rage,he nearly trampled his mother under the feet of his horse,which seemed to feel his master's anger,and plunging violently,breathed blood from his nostrils.When the prince had poured every possible execration on his brother's head,he turned and galloped away from the accursed castle,flying to the Duke of Durazzo,whom he had only just left,to tell him of this outrage and stir him to revenge.Charles was talking carelessly with his young wife,who was but little used to such tranquil conversation and expansiveness,when the Prince of Tarentum,exhausted,out of breath,bathed in perspiration,came up with his incredible tale.Charles made him say it twice over,so impossible did Louis's audacious enterprise appear to him.Then quickly changing from doubt to fury,he struck his brow with his iron glove,saying that as the queen defied him he would make her tremble even in her castle and in her lover's arms.He threw one withering look on Marie,who interceded tearfully for her sister,and pressing Robert's hand with warmth,vowed that so long as he lived Louis should never be Joan's husband.

That same evening he shut himself up in his study,and wrote letters whose effect soon appeared.A bull,dated June 2,1346,was addressed to Bertram de Baux,chief-justice of the kingdom of Sicily and Count of Monte Scaglioso,with orders to make the most strict inquiries concerning Andre's murderers,whom the pope likewise laid under his anathema,and to punish them with the utmost rigour of the law.But a secret note was appended to the bull which was quite at variance with the designs of Charles:the sovereign pontiff expressly bade the chief-justice not to implicate the queen in the proceedings or the princes of the blood,so as to avoid worse disturbances,reserving,as supreme head of the Church and lord of the kingdom,the right of judging them later on,as his wisdom might dictate.

For this imposing trial Bertram de Baux made great preparations.