As has been told then, by the time that King Robert passed away, leaving his kingdom to Joan and to Andrew, her consort, these two had been man and wife for long months; during which period Joan had loved, not her husband, but the handsome swaggering Saracen, Robert of Cabano. But by now, when she was become Queen of Naples by the death of her grandfather, Joan had grown weary of the insolence of Robert’s dominion over her and was minded to throw off the yoke of it. Also, her affections—which, be it said in justice to her, had formerly been consistently offered to her husband and as consistently rejected by him—had turned towards one of the very few completely disinterested and unselfish persons at the Court. This was Bertrand of Artois, whose father, Charles of Artois, had been appointed by King Robert’s will one of the regents of the kingdom until Andrew and Joan should have attained their twenty-fifth year. Joan had only one sister, Mary, a mere child, who was scarcely thirteen years old when Joan came to the throne; this Princess Mary, by the terms of King Robert’s testament, was to inherit the throne in the event of her elder sister’s dying without issue; in addition, the old King had expressed a wish that Princess Mary should be affianced either to Louis, King of Hungary, elder brother of Andrew, or, failing Louis, to the Duke of Normandy, eldest son of the King of France. In case of the death without heirs of both Joan and Mary, the sovereignty would by rights fall to Charles of Durazzo, eldest son of King Robert’s younger brother, who had died some years previously, John, Duke of Durazzo and Albania. John of Durazzo had left behind him a widow, Agnes, and two younger sons besides Charles; these were Ludovico, Count of Gravina, and Robert, Prince of the Morea. The youngest brother of King Robert, Philip, Prince of Taranto, who had likewise predeceased him, had also left a widow, who bore the title of Empress of Constantinople, inherited from her grandfather, Baldwin II, and three sons, Robert, Philip, and finally Louis of Taranto, the handsomest and most accomplished knight of his day, then but barely turned three-and-twenty. There had survived King Robert, too, his widow Sancia of Aragon, a character as noble and holy as the majority of those composing the Neapolitan Court were debased and self-seeking and unscrupulous. Before departing this life King Robert had obtained from Queen Sancia a promise to the effect that she would remain in the world and at Court for a whole year, in order to watch over the young King and Queen, Andrew and Joan—it being Queen Sancia’s announced intention to enter as soon as possible into a convent, there to end her days in peace and prayer—and to protect their relationship to one another from the perils which, as the dying man had clearly foreseen, must inevitably menace it. And, very particularly, he had warned his widow to be on her guard, where Joan was concerned, against three especial