Avon Modern Short Story Monthly #36 — page 60: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- yey ie 7 - > 4 e ‘ 4 - 4 ; f FA 7 “ a) ; a Te . ee ek eS a o~ “7 og 5 se Fae 614 ao > at * ca." ine +. Oy oe BO a es Ba Sen ee? et lan eB Sn Hem neh Nc le Car eae BL LT ~~ RR : a. : apie" “> . a ss : riage which had taken place ten years before, when Andreas was but seven years of age and Giovanna five. The aim had been thus to weld into one the two branches of the House of Anjou. Instead, the rivalry was to be rendered more acute than ever, and King Robert’s fear of some such result contributed to it not a little. On his deathbed he summoned the Princes of. the Blood—the members of the Houses of Durazzo and Taranto—and the chief nobles of the kingdom, demanding of them an oath of al- legiance to Giovanna, and himself appointing a Council of Regency to govern the kingdom during her minority. The consequence was that, against all that had been intended when the marriage was contracted, Giovanna was now proclaimed queen in her own right, and the government taken over in her name by the appointed Council. Instantly the Court of Naples was divided into two camps, the party of the Queen, including the Neapolitan nobility, and the party of Andreas of Hungary, consisting of the Hungarian nobles forming his train and a few malcontent Neapolitan barons, and guided by the sinister figure of Andreas’s preceptor, Friar Robert. This arrogant friar, of whom Petrarch has left us a vivid portrait, a red-faced, red-bearded man, with a fringe of red hair about his tonsure, short and squat of figure, dirty in his dress and habits, yet imbued with the pride of Lucifer despite his rags, thrust himself violently into the Council of Regency, demanding a voice in the name of his pupil Andreas. And the Council feared him, not only on the score of his overbearing personality, but also because he was supported by the populace, which had accepted his general filthiness as the outward sign of holiness. His irruption occasioned so much trouble and confusion that in the end the Pope intervened, in his quality as Lord Paramount—Naples being a fief of Holy Church— and appointed a legate to rule the kingdom during Giovanna’s minority. The Hungarians, with Andreas’s brother, King Ludwig of Hungary, at their head, now appealed to the Papal Court of Avignon for a Bull commanding the joint coronation of Andreas and Giovan- na, which would be tantamount to placing the government in the hands of Andreas. The Neapolitans, headed by the Princes of the Gomichbooks 60 we RAFAEL SABATINI (E)