Avon Modern Short Story Monthly #36 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

+ ’ ! een HISTORICAL NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENT 75 ae him.” Ludwig, tall and grim, stood eens. i chin in hand, Suddenly he wheeled upon the Duke who stood at his elbow. His face had undergone a change, and his lip curled so that he displayed his strong teeth as a dog displays them when he snarls. “Traitor!” he rasped. “It is you—-you who come smiling and fawn- ing upon me, and spurring me on to vengeance—who are to blame for what happened here.” where here between the thing was done, and thence they hanged. “I?” Charles fell back, changing colour, his legs trembling under — him. “You!” the King answered him furiously. “His death would never have come about but for your intrigues to keep him out of the Bs power, to hinder his coronation.” “Tt is false!” cried Charles. “False! I swear it before God!” “Perjured dog! Do you deny that you sought the aid of your precious uncle the Cardinal of Périgord to restrain the Pope from granting the Bull required?” “TI do deny it. The facts deny it. The Bull was forthcoming.” “Then your denial but proves your guilt,” the King answered him, and from the leather pouch hanging from his belt, he pulled out a parchment, and held it under the Duke’s staring eyes. It was the letter he had written to the Cardinal of Périgord, enjoining him to prevent the Pope from signing the Bull sanctioning Andreas’s corona- tion. The King smiled terribly into that white, twitching face. “Deny it now,” he mocked him. “Deny, too, that, bribed by the title of Duke of Calabria, you turned to the service of the Queen, to abandon it again for ours when you perceived your danger. You think to use us, traitor, as a stepping-stone to help you to mount the throne —as you sought to use my brother even to the extent of encompassing — his murder.” “No, no! I had no hand in that. I was his friend—” “Liar!” Ludwig struck him across the mouth. On the instant the officers of Ludwig laid hands upon the Duke, fearing that the indignity might spur him to retaliation. Gomichooks com