Chapter 125 Heart of the Storm (Thirteen)
◎Prison Break◎
The invitation to the banquet from the Dudley Palace was delivered to Leshert personally by the Emperor's butler. Raphael opened the invitation, took a look at it, and threw it on the table without a care. He was more concerned about another note handed to him in the afternoon.
The characters on the note were long and slanted, like curved vines, and were very similar to Raphael's handwriting - this was actually a beautiful handwriting that was copied bit by bit from Raphael's handwriting.
Ferrante has successfully entered Dudley and established contact with the bell tower guard by posing as a servant of a minor noble who died in the chaos.
Raphael brought the note to the brazier and burned it, and warmed his cold hands at the same time. The weather in Dudley is humid all year round, and after staying there for a long time, one feels as if one's breathing is suffocated, and even the dry clothes stick to the skin with a little dampness. For Raphael, it should have been just the right temperature, but he always couldn't stand the heaviness as if his bones were wrapped in wet cloth.
"Go," Raphael gently turned his hands over the flames. His hands were thin and bony, and the snow-white skin wrapped around the bones allowed one to see the faint purple blood vessels beneath the flesh, like the slender legs of a spider. Lesherte sat nearby, carefully maintaining his sword, and heard the Pope say in a calm tone, "Although it is a bit troublesome, it can prove that Florence is innocent in the upcoming trouble."
Leshert looked at him: "...Trouble?"
Raphael had no intention of covering up.
Leshert pondered for a moment, a gleam in his emerald eyes: "Clock tower?"
"How could a young queen who bravely went to war for love easily retreat before saving her imprisoned husband?" Raphael said in an exaggerated tone with a smile on his face, but the Knight Commander was sure that it was not to praise any "brave love."
"Our chance is coming." Raphael put his hands back into his sleeves, looking unusually gentle and dignified, his tone almost gentle.
He had waited so long, even at the cost of giving up the victory that was within his grasp, so that he could escape back to Calais intact... finally it was time to reap all the fruits of his labor.
He wants to recover not only the cost, but also the high interest.
For the servants in the Dudle Palace, hosting banquets has become their most common job. The royal family members who are naturally fond of luxury and enjoyment hold a banquet every one or two days, and various large and small gatherings make up the daily life of the royal family.
This was the case when the false king was in power, and now the emperor was just as keen on venting his energy that had nowhere to go on pleasure. After the false king, his greatest nemesis, was thrown into the bell tower, Alexander VI indulged himself in pleasure almost out of revenge.
He was the final winner, and there was no one in Calais who could resist him. Wasn't such joy worthy of a grand banquet?
Food and drinks were delivered to the Diamond Hall like water. This palace, which sounded extremely luxurious, lived up to its gorgeous name. The palace was surrounded by mirrors of various sizes polished with extremely pure crystals. The creamy yellow marble floor looked like it was naturally coated with dazzling gold powder. Expensive diamonds were inlaid in the swirls and curlew patterns as if they were free. These sparkling things only needed a little light source to make the whole palace as bright and brilliant as day.
According to the emperor's preferences, beautiful young men and women who were collected from all over the country were dressed in simple white robes and wore wreaths on their heads. They were dressed up as beautiful gods in ancient Greek mythology, hovering among the guests and providing them with services, of course, all services.
The customary court dance opening was also cancelled. Behind the curtains hanging between the pillars were vague and ambiguous whispers. The court band played soothing music, and the air was filled with the dizzying smell of alcohol and lust.
Leshet's expression was somewhat ugly. The knight commander, who had always been chaste, was not used to such occasions. It was not that he had not participated in court banquets before, but to attend a banquet in such an unrestrained and almost obscene manner was simply a humiliation to the noble character that the royal family should possess!
It is true that no matter what kind of banquet it is, there will always be trysts in the dim garden and affairs in the small space behind the curtains, but these are just unspoken secrets hidden under masks. When secrets become open and aboveboard rules, everything becomes disgusting.
And—an emperor who shared lovers with his subjects, and even with the nobles? Such disgusting stories can only be found in tales of the debauchery of ancient Rome, and without exception, these emperors did not end up so well.
For the first time, Leshet hated his superior hearing. He stayed at a windowsill where no one would disturb him. No ignorant people would come to chat with him or invite him out. On the contrary, he could hear the sticky sound of water and moaning on the windowsill next to him. The intermittent voice behind the pillar blocked by the curtain was crying. Leshet could even tell that the person making this sound was not a woman, but a teenager who had probably just entered the voice change period.
This realization made him even more embarrassed. True to his heart, the Knight Commander wanted to leave here as soon as possible, but he knew very well that he had to, must stay here - at least until that "trouble" happened.
He deceiving himself by looking out the window. A round, pale moon hung coldly in the sky. In the deep night, the sharp and tall parts of the Dudleya building looked like a picture cut out and pasted on paper.
The boy's voice inevitably entered Leshert's ears.
He was obviously trying his best to restrain himself. Leshert instinctively judged the other party's condition. He bit his lip, or perhaps covered his mouth - damn, why was he thinking about this? Leshert tried to divert his attention and think about other things, such as the affairs of the Knights Templar, the situation in Florence, and the fact that Raphael had just finished dinner before he came out. He didn't eat much, at least for the daily consumption of an adult male, that little food was not enough to support his daily thinking.
No wonder Raphael was so thin, his waist was too thin. By male standards, he was obviously not healthy. Leshet could hold his wrists with one hand, and with Raphael's physical strength, the best resistance he could make was probably to raise his legs and step on Leshet's waist.
It's not that Raphael hasn't stepped on him like this before, in Florence before, and including this time in Dudley, the young Pope did not hesitate to show his cold and arrogant side to Lesherte, with the whip, words and trampling, the Pope almost maliciously controlled every change of the Knight Commander from physical to mental, he made him suffer, observed his pain, and kindly gave him the opportunity to repent.
It is like the Lord touching the foreheads of believers in pain, listening to their words, and saving them from the sea of suffering.
Leshert was astonished that he remembered those details so clearly, including the tense muscles and tingling pain when the rough whip cut his skin, and the shudder when the Pope's foot stepped on his shoulder and the slightly cool instep touched his hot skin, which ran along the spine all the way to his scalp and was even more unbearable for Leshert than the pain of the whip.
At this moment, a low moan was heard from next door again. The crying voice rubbed every inch of the cochlea long and gently. The rapid breathing suddenly lengthened, then stopped, followed by a scream with a straight voice. The scream was quickly blocked back in the throat and turned into intermittent gasps.
Leshert froze.
He suddenly raised his hand, opened the curtain in front of him, and rushed out of this hiding place with hasty and disorderly steps. He quickly glanced around, walked a few steps to a small sofa next to the vase and sat down. His legs wrapped in straight woolen trousers were crossed in a posture that kept people at a distance.
There were a few people sitting here just now, but now it is empty. Apparently they have all found entertainment activities that suit them better. Leshert doesn't care what they do. There is a thin layer of sweat on his temples, and his heart is beating abnormally fast in his chest. This amount of exercise is certainly not enough to make him lose his composure like this.
The thin eyelids were half drooped, covering the pair of eyes that were as green as the forest in the early morning.
He felt his heart beating in a disordered, chaotic rhythm, as if the devil's hand was fiddling with this poor organ, and he - and his mind was filled with only Raphael's overly handsome and beautiful face. When the young man's voice rose, it was Raphael's face that flashed in his eyes!
How could this be possible - how could this be possible -
Leshert did not deny that he had feelings for Raphael that went beyond submission, but that should not include such lowly desires.
He leaned his sweaty back against the sofa and closed his eyes. He needed the pain to wake him up, just like, just like...
Leshert's face suddenly turned pale because of his own thoughts, and then turned blue.
His thoughts were falling into a dangerous abyss, and what pulled him out was a series of messy footsteps.
At the elegant and luxurious banquet, the guards who rushed in in leather boots opened their frightened eyes and nervously searched for their monarch in the chaos.
Alexander VI, surrounded by several beautiful Aphrodites, raised his head from the girls' snow-white shoulders and asked impatiently, "What happened?"
"Your Majesty! Someone broke into the clock tower and took away the false king!"
Alexander VI was stunned for a moment, then flew into a rage. Leschert, who was sitting in the corner, breathed a sigh of relief. It was finally time to leave. But strangely, when he thought about going back to see Raphael... he suddenly found it difficult to lift his feet.
"Count the number of personal guards and follow me out to arrest people, now! Also, bring crossbows and flintlocks."
Alexander VI roared the order, with a sinister cold light in his eyes. This time, he would not be so foolish as to lock anyone up. The best outcome for a prisoner was to die on the way to escape.
Alexander VI and his men rushed out of the main gate of the palace. Before they could run out of a street, they were blocked by a man. He wanted to step over the man, but in a flash he saw the other person's face, which made him change his mind. The majestic horse neighed and stomped its front hooves twice in the air before landing on the ground with a thud.
"you--?"
The emperor crouched down and examined the other's pale face from his horse.
"Yes, it's me, Your Majesty. I'm here to report to you that it was Queen Sancha who took Francois away. They want to leave Calais via Quide!"
"Aren't you the 'queen' of my good nephew? Are you going to betray him like this?"
The emperor asked in an ambiguous tone.
The one who stopped his horse was none other than Viscount Julia, who was captured and imprisoned in the bell tower together with François. Sanxia released François and also released him. However, no one noticed in the chaos that Julia did not leave with Sanxia and the others, but quietly slipped away by himself.
From the clock tower to here, his face was pale with nervousness and his stomach was cramping nervously, but this feeling reminded him of the time when he held the knife and cut off the head of Duke Lusen. He felt the same fear, panic, and... a barely detectable twisted excitement.
He feared François to a morbid degree, but this fear became a poison at some point, urging him to get more excitement.
François' defeat made him see another possibility, a possibility...like cutting off the head of the Duke of Luxembourg.
François' failure was a foregone conclusion, and he still wanted more wealth and power. At least he couldn't follow François to Romanesque - to become a thorn in the eyes of the Queen of Romanesque? If that's the case, why can't he use François to exchange for more of what he wants?
Or...he had already killed a duke, so why couldn't he kill an emperor?
"But you are the true emperor of the Calais Empire. As your subject, I shall naturally offer you my loyalty!" Yulia heard his own voice as if it was squeezed out of a rubber tube, sharp and unnaturally high-pitched.
Alexander VI was silent for a while, then suddenly burst into laughter: "Then come along, I'll give you a chance to prove your loyalty to me!"
Yulia was immediately lifted up and put on a horse, lying across the horse's back and galloping forward in great pain.
In order to sneak into Dudelai, Sangxia did not bring many people with him. Most of them had already entered the caltrops of Dudelai. There were less than eighty people in total. They surrounded Sangxia and Francois in the middle and ran out in a protective posture. Francois, who was protected in the middle, had a smile on his face, but his eyes were misty and gloomy.
He is not happy.
As a prisoner, he was of course happy to leave prison, but as an emperor with a morbid self-awareness and desire for control... he would rather decide how and when to leave on his own, rather than being passively taken away like a tool.
Yes, even though his fiancée came to save him, but just imagine, when you were alone, surrounded by your fiancée and her subordinates and left your capital, cut off from all your subordinates, and even - as long as he died, his fiancée could legally claim ownership of his throne... Oh, by the way, he sent several waves of assassins to assassinate his fiancée a few days ago.
Under such circumstances, it would be impossible for François to be happy about his successful escape from the clock tower.
A certain ominous premonition, like circling crows and dark clouds, hung heavily over François' head.
The emperor, who was born in the same year as Raphael, looked at his fiancée. His appearance was naturally childish regardless of his age. Maybe it was because of his face shape, or because he had been living in an overly pampered environment for a long time, but François's face would occasionally reveal an unusual innocence that was inconsistent with his personality. When he was not crazy, this innocence could win him the favor of others.
"My dear, maybe I can know what your next plan is?" The conditions in the clock tower were not so good. The emperor was still wearing the blood-stained shirt and trousers, with a cloak brought to him by Sangxia on the outside. There was no crown on his long curly hair under the hood, as fluffy as wool - of course not, his throne had been plundered, and everything he had no longer existed.
"It's up to you, Your Majesty." Sangxia's long hair was tied behind her head with a headband, and her sleeves were neatly tied with cowhide ropes. Her voice was soft and hoarse, just like a woman who truly traveled thousands of miles for love.
In the dim night, François only felt that her eyes were unusually bright, like gems burning with fire. ╩
"Really? What if I say we want to attack the palace?" François laughed.
Sang Xia followed his lead and said, "Then attack the palace."
There was a sudden silence between them.
A strange and tense atmosphere spread among them.
Their confrontation was interrupted by the rumbling sound of horse hooves coming from afar. The ground was shaking slightly, and dust and small stones stirred up a thin layer of mist on the ground. They saw fire and chaotic and noisy shouts.
The author has something to say:
It was the first time I got sunburned in my life, and I could actually wipe off a layer of skin with my hand... It's so scary! ! Everyone must wear sunscreen when going out! What's worse is that there is a very strange shape on my back now. When the red turns to black, won't it be even weirder? It's cracked, it's cracked, is there any way to whiten it [Cat Crying]
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