For many months the fortunes of war inclined first to one side and then to the other. It began by Nicholas Acciajuoli’s blockading the Hungarians in their strongholds, whilst Louis of Taranto employed his energies in reducing various of the rebellious barons to allegiance. Little by little, he extended his operations from the city of Naples into the furthest confines of the kingdom; until, by dint of perseverance, he had contrived to make himself, as it appeared, master of it. But suddenly his good-fortune deserted him, owing to his abandonment by one of the King of Hungary’s mercenaries whom Louis had seduced to the side of the Queen by heavy bribes. This was that Werner who styled himself “the enemy of GOD,” and who now resold himself to the Hungarian, to whose Vicar-General, Conrad Wolf (Conrado Lupo, as the chronicler makes it), he opened the gates of Benevento. The consequence of Werner’s treachery was to force Louis of Taranto to fall back upon Naples; when the King of Hungary, on learning of it, made all speed to rejoin his troops—he had fled from Italy for a while to escape an epidemic of the plague—before Aversa, bringing with him heavy reinforcements. Landing at Manfredonia, he advanced, practically unopposed, so swiftly as to take his adversary completely by surprise. Having made himself master of the fortresses of Trani, Canosa, and Salerno in rapid succession, thus hemming in Louis of Taranto on the east and on the south, he proceeded to lay siege to Aversa on the north of Naples. This new move threatened disaster to Joan and her husband, who, being forced to remain on the defensive in Naples, were obliged to witness the spectacle of as gallant a resistance as was ever made by any beleaguered garrison; and that without being able to come in any way to the assistance of Pignatelli, the commandant of the place, and his heroic soldiers, who only numbered about five hundred men, as against some seventeen thousand of the enemy’s forces. During three months Pignatelli flung back the King of Hungary’s attacks upon the town; until finally, despairing of taking Aversa by assault, the Hungarian resolved to reduce it by starvation. Gradually the circumstances of the little garrison became hopeless; so that Pignatelli was confronted with the alternative of surrender or of death either by starvation or in a last grapple with the besiegers. To add to the general distress, a fleet of vessels bringing reinforcements to Queen Joan from Provence under the leadership of Renaud des Baux—some relation this, I fancy, of that terrible Chief Justice, the Count of Monte Scaglioso—and upon the timely arrival of which all depended, was delayed by contrary winds so that none could say where it was or whether it would ever arrive at all.