e 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