a piece of meat to the liver-coloured
hounds that crouched expectant on the rushes of the floor.

They had hunted that day in the neighbourhood of Capua, and Andreas had
acquitted himself well, and was in high good-humour, giving now little
thought to the sinister things that Charles of Durazzo had lately
whispered, laughing and jesting with the traitor Morcone at his side.
Behind him in close attendance stood his servant Pace, once a creature
of Durazzo's. The Queen sat on his right, making but poor pretence to
eat; her lovely young face was of a ghostly pallor, her dark eyes were
wide and staring. Among the guests were the black-browed Evoli and his
brother-in-law, Terlizzi; Bertrand of Artois and his father; Melazzo,
that other creature of Charles's, and Filippa the Catanese, handsome and
arrogant, but oddly silent to-night.

But Charles of Durazzo was not of the company. It is not for the player,
himself, to become a piece upon the board.

He had caught a whisper that the thing he had so slyly prompted to
Bertrand d'Artois was to be done here at Aversa, and so Charles had
remained at Naples. He had discovered very opportunely that his wife was
ailing, and he developed such concern for her that he could not bring
himself to leave her side. He had excused himself to Andreas with a
thousand regrets, since what he most desired was to enjoy with him the
cool, clean air of Aversa and the pleasures of the chase; and he had
presented the young King at parting with the best of all his falcons in
earnest of affection and disappointment.

The night wore on, and at last, at a sign from the Queen, the ladies
rose and departed to their beds. The men settled down again. The
cellarers redoubled their activities, the flagons circulated more
briskly, and the noise they made must have disturbed the monks
entrenched in their cells against these earthly vanities. The laughter
of Andreas grew louder and more vacuous, and when at last he heaved
himself up at midnight and departed to bed, that he might take some rest
against the morrow's hunt, he staggered a little in his walk.

But there were other hunters there whose impatience could not keep until
the morrow, whose game was to be run to death that very night. They
waited--Bertrand d'Artois, Robert of Cabane, the Counts of Terlizzi and
Morcone, Melazzo and Andreas's body servant Pace--until all those who
lay at Aversa were deep in slumber. Then at two o'clock in the morning
they ma