to the queen's room, and there, says Domenico Gravina, without any
preamble, the union was consummated.

On returning from his ride, Robert, astonished that the bridge was not
at once lowered for him, at first loudly called upon the soldiers
on guard at the fortress, threatening severe punishment for their
unpardonable negligence; but as the gates did not open and the soldiers
made no sign of fear or regret, he fell into a violent fit of rage,
and swore he would hang the wretches like dogs for hindering his return
home. But the Empress of Constantinople, terrified at the bloody quarrel
beginning between the two brothers, went alone and on foot to her
son, and making use of her maternal authority to beg him to master his
feelings, there in the presence of the crowd that had come up hastily
to witness the strange scene, she related in a low voice all that had
passed in his absence.

A roar as of a wounded tiger escaped from Robert's breast: all but blind
with rage, he nearly trampled his mother under the feet of his horse,
which seemed to feel his master's anger, and plunging violently,
breathed blood from his nostrils. When the prince had poured every
possible execration on his brother's head, he turned and galloped away
from the accursed castle, flying to the Duke of Durazzo, whom he had
only just left, to tell him of this outrage and stir him to revenge.
Charles was talking carelessly with his young wife, who was but little
used to such tranquil conversation and expansiveness, when the Prince of
Tarentum, exhausted, out of breath, bathed in perspiration, came up with
his incredible tale. Charles made him say it twice over, so impossible
did Louis's audacious enterprise appear to him. Then quickly changing
from doubt to fury, he struck his brow with his iron glove, saying that
as the queen defied him he would make her tremble even in her castle