Completely deceived by the pernicious woman’s fair words as reported to him, Count Charles sent out his son Bertrand to receive her with all due ceremony, and to escort her to where he himself lay prostrate with illness. Their meeting was cordial in the extreme; after expressing the most heartfelt regrets at the venerable knight’s sad condition, the Empress, so soon as they were alone together, lowering her voice, said that her object in so coming to him was to consult him in regard to the state of affairs in Naples and to enlist his active support on behalf of the Queen. At the same time, she went on to say, there being no immediate reason for her return to the capital, she would be more than grateful for the favour of being allowed to remain yet a few days with him at St. Agatha, in order to profit by his advice and to give him some account of all that had come to pass in Naples during his absence. It ended in Count Charles’ head being quite turned by the Empress’ flattery; so that he not only begged her to remain his guest for so long as she pleased, but also gave orders for the gates of the castle to be left open so that she might be accessible at all times to her officers, civil and military, that were encamped outside the walls with her army. But the fatuous credulity of Count Charles was soon undeceived. At a late hour of the following night, the gates of the fortress being still open and its rightful inmates sound asleep for the most part, the foolish old Count was suddenly awakened from his slumbers by the Empress of Constantinople, who, followed by several of her soldiers, entered his room, a dagger in her hand, and, advancing to his couch, seized him by the throat. “Oh, accursed traitor, you are now going to be punished as you deserve!” she cried. And when he begged only mercy for his son—thinking the Empress had in mind to slay them both, lest at any time they should conspire against the kingship of her son, Louis of Taranto—and offered to put her in possession of his entire treasury if only she would spare the life of his adored son, to all his entreaties she answered only that he must prepare to part for ever from his son, whom she had decided to send away to the castle of Malfi; and that, as for Count Charles himself, the probability was that he would end his days in the dungeons of that of St. Agatha of the Goths. Prior to pronouncing these sentences, however, she had compelled him to show her where his immense treasures were concealed behind the wall of his bedchamber—a veritable Aladdin’s cave of gold in bars and in plate and of precious stones.