Chapter 37 Jadeite Gem (8)

◎The dust will settle◎

After Raphael returned to the Papal Palace after being away for nearly two months, he fell ill.

This is not surprising. Polly even finds it miraculous. Considering the tremendous pressure and work intensity Raphael has been under in the past two months, it is truly amazing that he was able to hold on until everything was over before falling ill.

But this is little comfort to those around the Pope.

Raphael was very ill.

On the wide four-poster bed, the thick dark green silk around it was half-untied and half-pulled, with golden silk threads pressed inside the fabric, creating luxurious golden folds rippling in the deep green. The young man lying on the bed had his eyes closed, his breath weak, his cheeks flushed by the high fever, his lips chapped and pale, his long light golden hair scattered messily on the pillow, and the quilt tightly covered his chin, making the person in the middle of the bed look even thinner, and even the ups and downs of his body were not obvious.

In order to take care of the patient, the gas lamps in the room were deliberately dimmed. Polly said that this was a high fever caused by excessive fatigue and that it would be fine as long as he got enough sleep. However, no one could easily feel relieved when seeing Raphael's pitiful and miserable appearance.

Julius came in with a few bottles of wine, pulled over a golden basin on a shelf, and casually poured the wine into the basin. He then leaned into the bed curtains and carefully observed Raphael's expression.

The Pope looked particularly harmless with his eyes closed. His weak, delicate and fragile temperament was infinitely magnified, making it almost impossible to identify him with the man who decisively and cruelly issued the order to burn more than 7,000 people. Stripped of his rationality when he was awake, the sleeping Pope was as thin as a flower.

Gentle, pure, and transparent, as if one could hold him in the palm of one hand, gently massage his petals, and wait for him to cry.

Julius stared at him for a long while, as if to make up for the gap in the past two months. He stretched out his hand and gently pressed it on Raphael's forehead to test his temperature, acting like a caring elder.

Amid the slight hiss of the steadily burning gas lamp, the hand still wearing the snow-white glove began to move down, touching Raphael's soft cheek, wiping away the tiny beads of sweat like diamonds beside his hair, and moving along the contour of his cheek. The silk fabric left a faint red mark on his skin, like the texture left by a snake sliding along a leaf, entwined around the snow-white skin in an ambiguous and sticky manner.

The gas lamp stretched the shadow of the person beside the bed into a long one, which folded from the thick Assyrian carpet to the wall. His movements were so subtle that they were unrecognizable, but the shadow, which was magnified countless times, frankly revealed all his hesitations.

The tall shadow slowly bent down, like a mountain quietly bowing its head in the moonlight, looking for the flower that fell from the top of the mountain, waiting to pick it up again, but it finally stopped at the end.

The iron-gray-haired patriarch of the Portia family looked at the person who was so close to him and closed his eyes silently. His deep purple eyes were filled with indescribable complex emotions. His lips moved slightly and he murmured a short sentence. The sentence quickly dissipated into the air without being heard by anyone, as if it had never appeared in this world.

The sleeping person was unconscious and had no idea what was happening.

Julius stood up, took off his gloves, and used his hands to stir the wine in the basin, making a clear sound of water. He lifted Raphael's quilt and slowly and carefully wiped his palms, elbows, and heart with cotton cloth soaked in wine. Patients with high fever need to be cooled down regularly, and alcohol evaporates quickly, so using it to cool down is the best choice.

This job was originally assigned to the deacons around the Pope, and they certainly did not dare to slack off, but Julius would sometimes come in person.

The job of the Secretary General of the Papal Palace was not an easy one. While Raphael was under tremendous pressure in the lower city, Julius, as the only target left by the Pope, faced pressure in the Papal Palace that was no less than his, but most of the pressure came from the nobles in the upper city.

The pressure was greatly alleviated after Raphael returned. The young Pope sent Ferrante out and handed over all the investigations related to the epidemic to him. It must be said that from the situation in the past few days, even Julius was secretly shocked by the ability of this young man.

He was like a poisonous snake born and raised in darkness, able to silently crawl into any crack, waiting and suffering patiently like hibernating, and then showing his fangs and biting the prey's lifeblood at the most appropriate time.

This is a natural assassin and an excellent hunter. He is not suitable to appear in the bright sunshine. The dark shadows are his battlefield where he is invincible.

He has even learned to obtain the information he wants from various channels without any guidance, which is an ability that many people do not have even after systematic training.

Julius was surprised by his overly mature methods, and at the same time stunned by the viciousness of his actions - yes, he used this word, even Raphael, whom he had taught, might not be able to use torture so skillfully on servants who might know the inside story, but this young man could grab the other person's hair and force him to tell him information without changing his expression.

Julius had seen many kinds of cruel and heartless people - such people were especially common among the corrupt and empathetic nobles, but Ferrante was different from them. He could understand the most subtle emotional changes of others, and this talent made him better at capturing the lies and truth of others.

Julius felt more and more depressed as he thought of the papal decree that Raphael had signed before he fell ill.

He appointed Ferrante as the captain of the Papal Guard, and at the same time "to assist the Papal Palace in discerning and identifying the purity of the people's faith, persuading those who have lost their way to return to the right path, uncovering conspiracies against the Pope and the people he protects, defending the Pope, and maintaining the peace and tranquility of the Papal Palace and Florence." These words sounded understated and very official, as if they were just clichés to encourage Ferrante, but Julius, who was well versed in the art of discourse, did not think that Raphael, who always used concise and accurate words, would do so in vain. His student hated those general and empty words the most.

After witnessing what Ferrante had done in the past few days, Julius was suddenly shocked.

He remembered what this familiar sense of déjà vu was.

Wasn’t this the power exercised by the Inquisition many years ago?

Protect the Pope's safety, discern and identify the purity of people's faith, and persuade those who have lost their way to return to the right path of faith...

The pupils of the Portia patriarch constricted, and he tightly grasped the cotton cloth in his hand. The light red wine was squeezed out from the fibers, and slid down his fingers onto the Pope's naked skin, leaving pink water marks on his overly white texture, and finally sliding into his clothes, spreading a faint reddish color on the fabric.

Julius stood there in a daze, looking at the sleeping Raphael, his mind in a mess.

What exactly do you want to do?

The patriarch of Portia looked at him intently, as if he had seen him for the first time in his life, his gaze moving from his tightly closed eyes to his dry lips, he thought with a little sadness.

Rafa, Rafael, what do you want to do?

You reused the Knights Templar and brought it back to the world's attention through Leshert. You also wanted to rebuild an institution very similar to the Inquisition and even found its leader... What exactly do you want to do?

The last pope controlled the powerful Knights Templar and the Inquisition. Under his throne was a united and huge Papal State, with his flags flying all over the world. But he eventually died in the conspiracy of the kings, his glory was shattered, and his kingdom was torn apart.

What do you want to do?

Do you want to go against the flow of time and bring back the glory that can never be reproduced to the world?

The kings would not want to see the emergence of a powerful Papal State, much less a powerful pope oppressing them. Even the nobles would not want to have a pope who could monitor their lives and govern them.

Florence is not the Florence of the Pope, but the Florence of the nobility, or even the Florence of Portia. Rafa, have you forgotten?

The patriarch of Portia threw the cotton cloth back into the basin, stood by the bed for a while, and then realized that he had accidentally dropped wine. He reached out and gently wiped off the wine stain that had not yet completely dried. The warm and soft body under his palm was still rising and falling slightly with his breathing. He suddenly felt an extreme sadness hit him, for no reason, but it was more suffocating and desperate than the ocean.

Julius lowered his eyes, covered Raphael tightly with the quilt, carefully checked every gap, and finally untied the dark green bed curtains and put them down.

The pale and beautiful face in sight was quickly hidden behind a thin golden veil.

Raphael recovered from his illness after half a month. To say he recovered meant that he no longer had a fever. He still looked lazy, wrapped in a robe thicker than others, sitting in the warm study, reading the secret report handed in by Ferrante's men.

Yes, Ferrante has initially assembled a team of his own, based on the Pope's Guard. Under Ferrante's command, they are changing day by day, becoming more and more mysterious and silent, like black blades, lurking around the Pope or appearing anywhere they are needed.

Raphael did not teach him anything. In fact, he had no time to teach him. He fell ill before he could say more to Ferrante. Before he fell ill, he only left Ferrante a letter of appointment, an unlimited check signed by him, and a "

Investigate the Twelve Lords".

The mission was vague, but Ferrante clearly got the point.

The scandals of the twelve lords were being delivered to Raphael's desk through Ferrante's hands. In the latest report, Ferrante had found their gathering on that mysterious night and discovered how they smuggled diseased poultry and livestock into ships and sent them through layers of checkpoints to the downtown docks.

It was as if an invisible web was being woven over Florence by Ferrante's hands. The peddlers and servants of the nobles were all the threads of this spider web. Every word they said unintentionally would be transmitted, integrated, and finally gathered at the center of the web.

Even Raphael, who is always picky, couldn't help but be surprised by such high efficiency.

He opened the new report that had been delivered this morning - Ferrante's report was directly reported to the Pope and never went through anyone else, which made him completely independent of other entities in the Papal Palace and had in fact formed a new institution, but not many people were aware of this yet.

Raphael's eyes had just fallen on the paper, and before he had read a few lines, a warm cloak with a scent of frankincense fell on his shoulders.

Raphael turned his head and saw the elusive Ferrante standing beside him and putting the clothes on him. The boy's black curly hair had grown a lot longer, and his handsome face had lost all its youthfulness and immaturity. He had narrow eyes and upturned lips, and naturally had feminine charm and masculine sharpness. These two temperaments were fully blended in his facial features, showing an overly enchanting magic.

With his already dark long black hair, he looked almost like an oriental ghost walking out of a mural.

Not knowing where he had just gone, Raphael smelled a gloomy and cold aura from him, mixed with a faint smell of rust.

“Holy Father, your body has not fully recovered yet, please don’t work so hard.” Ferrante spoke to Raphael in a coaxing tone with a slight smile on his lips, looking very well-behaved - of course, those who were hung in the interrogation room by him would never think so, what they feared most was seeing this black-haired devil smiling slightly - but this did not prevent this "black-haired devil" from showing his completely harmless self in front of his Holy Father.

"There's nothing interesting about these things. If you want to know, you can ask me directly. I will tell you everything - without hiding anything."

The sixteen-year-old boy spoke in a serious tone. He was wearing black clothes with tight sleeves. His monk's robe covered most of his body, and his trouser legs were tucked into short boots. He looked no different from any other devout monk walking in the Papal Palace. However, as long as anyone who threatened the Pope appeared, one could see how this harmless "monk" would take out a variety of weapons from under his robe and cut his throat.

Raphael didn't know about these things yet. He closed the report obediently and listened to Ferrante speaking in a low and soothing voice in his ear about what he had investigated over the past few days.

As he expected, the lords conspired to use the plague to trick him and the main rulers headed by Julius out of Florence, hoping to gain freedom, divide the power of Florence, and replace the pope who they can control.

"Who did they choose? Or, which idiot joined their conspiracy?" Raphael asked softly.

"Didn't the Holy Father guess it?" Ferrante smiled, whispered a name into Raphael's ear, and then asked, "Do we need to tell Mr. Portia? Let him handle it himself?"

He stared at the Pope, waiting for his reaction.

Raphael didn't hesitate at all: "No need."

Ferrante didn't notice that when Raphael said this word, his heart felt at peace for a moment.

"I need enough evidence," Raphael continued, "find enough witnesses, get enough confessions, and then I will hold a grand trial for the entire Florence."

The young pope opened his eyes, and his lavender eyes were filled with cold murderous intent: "Anyone who is guilty must pay for this a hundredfold."

Ferrante laughed silently. "I will obey your orders, Holy Father. Oh, and when you were ill, His Excellency the Duke of Luxembourg submitted several requests for audience, hoping to visit you, but they were all rejected by His Excellency Portia."

Raphael was silent for a moment. Redrick? What does he want to do? But it didn't matter, Raphael quickly put the matter behind him because he remembered something imminent and almost forgotten.

He has not yet replied to the letter that Sangxia sent more than a month ago.

The Pope rubbed his brows, thinking of what was said in the letter, and suddenly felt that the situation was a little tricky.

The author has something to say:

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