The sword decides

The hard, perfect turquoise of the summer sky was fading into the glowing purple of evening and the first stars glittered golden above the vast calm of the Adriatic Sea; silver...

Andreas of Hungary stared on the floor. In a vague manner his untaught mind felt the tragedy and pity of it all. He was not given to reflection, and his short life had taught hi...

The midday sun burned in the blazing white streets of splendid Naples, and on the air, heavy with the perfume of the orange groves of Sorrento, fell the tolling of the bells fro...

It was a small room, carefully shrouded from the daylight by a velvet curtain. Before the window an alabaster lamp cast a faint glow, making golden _fleur-de-lis_ that were powd...

“The King,” he answered, and entered the chamber where she sat. She was alone, seated by the foot of her bed, with sunshine strong over her primrose velvet gown. She had an ivor...

“There is a moral in everything,” said the dwarf, “and the moral of a garden is, ‘don’t build a house.’” And he blinked up at the blue sky, tempered by the thousand blossoms of...

Sancia di Renato, the Queen’s Paduan waiting-woman, held up a corner of the crimson canopy between her face and the sun. Her white dress was glowing in the rosy reflection as sh...

For a while he kept quite still, looking about him. Through the diamond panes of the window was a pleasant view of trees and sky and sunshine. Andreas turned on to his side and...

Andreas of Hungary ruled in Naples; no one disputed the title the Pope had sanctioned, nor made any effort on behalf of the Queen, who had admitted the justice of her husband’s...

The Queen, on being informed of his arrival, had at once asked to see him. She sent Sancia to tell him that she was alone save for two or three of her nobles who had followed he...

Maria d’Anjou, roused by distant cries, and finding her door for the first time in many hours unguarded, hastily threw on some of her clothes and ran out into the convent corridor.

They held a great fête at the Castel del Nuovo, more splendid than had been known for many years. The dead, disfigured King was in his tomb in Santa Chiara, and no one spoke his...

The early sun cast the lilies of Anjou in golden doubles on the floor. So had they lain when Andreas of Hungary first met his wife’s sister in this same room, while the old King...

They were playing ball in the gardens of the Castel del Nuovo; Giovanna would have it so. She walked up and down the paved path watching them. There were not many left at the co...

The exclusive power you arrogated to yourself in the Kingdom, the insolence with which you treated the King, the favor which you have shown to his murderers, even to the extent...

Queen Giovanna, in a dull red dress, a dark purple scarf about her head, rode a little white mule. Carlo di Durazzo, in the plain habit of a traveler, was singing and caressing...

“He might have come, God wot, as a conqueror,” returned the other. “The guilds would have opened to him--and, after all, he is the true heir. It was a daring move,” he added.

Toward sunset, a few men following him, he rode to the scene of his brother’s murder; up the fragrant garden where Andreas had passed only a few months ago, under the doorway An...

Maria d’Anjou accepted it silently. She did not rail or complain. Through the tangled life of the palace she moved quietly, with apparent little heed of what passed about her.

Above the bay, which was of a peculiar light pearl color, low, dusky, yellowish clouds rolled, spreading slowly and obscuring the pale, dazzling sky. Overhead, the sun burned in...

She came through the trees slowly, holding up the front of her long green dress. The cool, rich leaves and moss were spangled with sunlight, that flickered also over her hair as...

Maria kissed her rosary and her psalter and laid them in her bosom; then, with the calm step and composed face of a nun, opened the little door that led into her bedchamber.

Ludovic of Hungary stood silent and thoughtful. The early morning sun made a great brightness in the chamber. The King had a parchment in his hand; on the floor beside him knelt...

She looked at the trees, the roses on their trellis, the sky and the long shadows, but could not escape the sense of confinement, imprisonment, that had haunted her in the house.

In his bedchamber the King mused sullenly, at war with circumstance. He had refused himself to those who sought admission to his presence, and, when he chose to raise his head t...

The sick, cloying smell of the lilies troubled Ludovic. As he closed the door, his eyes slowly, reluctantly, sought the slight figure of the Queen, and the hot resolution that h...

He strove to draw himself aside from the surging throng. It was impossible, the King was swept along next the beggar on the tide of panic and despair. Now the clamor of the bell...

/Giovanna/ lay in her great bed. Her head rested on a silk pillow with a heavy gold fringe, and the coverlet, striped green and purple, was drawn up to her pointed chin.

/The/ great engines of war, dragged by straining men and horses, the companies of heavy cavalry, blocked the streets about the Castel del Nuovo. The drawbridge was up and above...

For twenty-four hours there had been a truce between Italy and Hungary, but the spirit of the splendid capital was broken. The Queen was a prisoner, Luigi of Taranto, holding th...

She crossed the floor in a quick silence. A hazy veil of the hue of a turkis was bound in her faint hair and floated about her as she walked.