Chapter 26 Misty Rose (Twenty-six)
◎Bathroom◎
Raphael rushed onto the carriage on his footstool with great momentum, his movements as swift as a gust of wind. The servants behind him trotted after the Pope, their faces filled with uncontrollable panic and weirdness.
The carriage started moving as soon as the Pope got on, and the attendants hurried to catch up, forming a funny long dragon.
Everything that happened today was too weird. They exchanged glances quietly in between runs, and retracted their gazes after seeing each other's equally confused and surprised expressions.
The servants living in the Papal Palace all have the same instinct to seek profit and avoid harm. They know very well that no matter what happened today, they cannot communicate so ostentatiously.
Rafael in the car showed a forbearing expression the moment the vehicle started. He bent down and used his hands to feel and confirm his right leg little by little, from the fragile ankle to the more broken knee - the kick that kicked Carlos away just now was too strong, and the way of exerting force was a bit awkward. The knee, which already had a serious old injury, began to ache slightly, announcing its existence with a tingling pain that could not be ignored.
The Pope sighed softly, squeezing out the turbid air in his lungs, calming his overly panicky heartbeat, and then slowly began to tidy up his somewhat messy appearance.
In order to express his anger, he rushed out without tidying up his messy clothes and hair. Taking advantage of this little time, he was finally able to pull out his long curly hair from under his cloak. The light golden hair looked like a handful of cruelly crushed gold threads, which he pulled out roughly and threw behind his back. There was no emotion in his lavender eyes.
Choosing Carlos was the result of careful consideration. After he walked into the building "drunk", he chose an empty room and waited quietly. As the banquet progressed, some people who could not wait would come here to have fun. His guess was correct. Gradually, nobles came from the end of the path, and after waiting for a while, he set his eyes on Carlos who was alone.
Looking at his face, there is no impression of him at all. He is a minor noble who is not qualified to meet the Pope. The family emblem on his clothes is very simple. His family roots are not strong and will not cause turmoil in Florence.
Raphael selected his prey with an almost cold eye.
He sat down by the window, and when the other person looked up at him dizzily, he smiled at him.
——How sad.
The monarch of Florence thought that he controlled the faith of hundreds of millions of people on the continent, was God's agent walking on earth, possessed supreme authority, was called the King of All Kings, and even kings had to bow their heads before his chariot.
——But now he has to rely on selling his looks to achieve his goal.
This is the method with the least bad consequences, but if it was in the previous life... During the short time he was waiting for the other party to go upstairs, he thought aimlessly that if it was him in the past, he would never accept such a humiliating method because he was well protected by Julius. The head of Portia would not let him do such a thing. He could use Portia to achieve any purpose -
The hot breath with the smell of alcohol approached him, and Raphael endured it until a pair of hands touched his hair and began to pull his clothes. A heavy body pressed against him, and Raphael suddenly opened his eyes, raised his right foot and kicked out hard.
- If, what a beautiful word. He suddenly realized that Julius had actually protected him very well, just like protecting an expensive porcelain or a delicate rose. He kept him from getting hurt or getting wet in the rain, and kept all the storms outside the Papal Palace, building a carefree Garden of Eden for him.
--Until he got tired of it.
Raphael re-tied the strap of his cloak and pressed hard on his right leg, using the artificially created pain to suppress the soreness rising from his bones, silently revealing a hideous smile.
Even with this flawless face, this smile could not be made more beautiful. It had nothing to do with any beautiful words and was entirely the product of an evil spirit that had crawled out of hell.
The corners of his mouth were exaggeratedly stretched, his skin was ugly, his pupils were dilated, and pink bloodshot climbed up his eyeballs. The holy angel broke free from his beautiful skin. His snow-white wings and golden hair were soaked with the malice of revenge and resentment. The blood of the world turned into chains that dragged him into hell. He took root in hell, but still tried to climb the flowers of sin to the sky. His soul howled, roared, and screamed with resentment.
The carriage stopped and there was silence behind the curtain. The servants looked at each other, not daring to disturb the Pope who might be in deep thought. Finally, the curtain was drawn and the Pope walked out of the carriage. The servants hurried up to hold his arm, and the Pope slowly and solemnly stepped on the footstool to get off the carriage and walked straight into the corridor where the lights had already been lit.
Gas lamps illuminated the corridors of the Papal Palace. Portraits were hung on one side of the arched, semi-open corridor. However, due to years of weathering of the paint and the passage of time, even the most carefully maintained portraits were no longer as bright and beautiful as they were at the beginning. The figures in the portraits looked particularly eerie under the light. The figures in the portraits, wearing religious robes or armor, looked outside the paintings, as if they would smile strangely at anyone who passed by at any time.
The young Pope walked through these gloomy corridors with an expressionless face and met Ferrante head-on.
Ferrante may have been waiting here for a long time, and there were dark marks of dew and wind on his coat. When Raphael saw him, the uncontrollable violence in his heart surged up again. He knew very well that most of this feeling should be attributed to his current incompetence. His meager strength made him choose this most vulgar and shameless method, but, but -
How could he completely control himself from taking his anger out on others?
Ferrante stood there nervously and saw the Pope walking towards him in the cold night wind. He stopped a few steps away from him and looked at him slowly with his lavender eyes, as if he had never seen him before. This look made Ferrante feel creepy, as if he was being stared at by a snake.
"You can rest assured." Raphael finally restrained himself, and there was no flaw in his tone.
Ferrante hesitated for a while. He didn't hear any rumors. If the Pope had a conflict with François, this explosive news would surely sweep across Florence in the first place. However, he didn't hear any movement in the Papal Palace, which was the center of Florence. He didn't know what His Majesty had done, but François must not have suffered any losses.
He doesn't want
He wasn't questioning, nor was he blaming anyone, it was just that... the development of this matter seemed a little different from what he had imagined.
No matter how precocious and insightful he was about human nature, the young Ferrante still naively believed in the simple view of good and evil that "evil will be punished with evil". In his opinion, if the Pope wanted to save those poor people, he must punish François, the culprit. He certainly understood that it was impossible for the Pope to impose any substantial punishment on the Duke of Calais, but what happened?
He didn't quite understand, and realized that something was completely different from what he had imagined.
Unlike the lower class he was hanging out with, the cold truth beneath Florence's gorgeous clothes and luxurious jewels revealed its true face to him.
He wanted to speak, but Raphael did not give him the chance. His excessive beauty - and the red face caused by the severe pain during his fast walking added a magical power to the saint who was not in touch with the world, like a crack in a beautiful jade or a broken half of the moon. Because of its imperfection, it is even more tempting to stare at it, and you can't wait to pick it up and observe it carefully, to use your fingertips to pee at it carefully, to smell it, and to touch it with your lips -
The Pope suddenly moved closer to him, and with his fingers, which were chilled by the night wind, he grasped Ferrante's chin and forced him to look at him.
The boy was half a head shorter than an adult, so he could only raise his head slightly. He heard the pope say in a flat tone: "I heard it, I achieved it."
"—In return, you must give me your all."
After making this arrogant and dictatorial declaration, the Pope let him go, looked at him coldly for a few seconds, walked around him, and led a group of people towards the baths, leaving Ferrante standing blankly in the corridor divided by shadows and lights.
Knowing that the Pope was on his way back, the attendants had already started heating the bath early. They turned on all the fireplaces, and buried a large number of heat-conducting brass pipes at the bottom of the bath, which imitated the ancient Roman style. Boxes of coal were put into the boiler room, and water was heated and poured into the brass pipes. The continuously flowing water was used to heat the wide pool. Soon, the whole bath was filled with hot steam, and you would even sweat profusely if you stayed in it for a long time.
The bottom of the pool was paved with colored glass. The gorgeous and rich colors refracted by the water and the gas lamps on the wall, creating a radiant glow as clear and transparent as gems. It seemed as if the entire bathroom was held up in flowing ribbons. Light velvet curtains covered the surroundings. Raphael dismissed everyone, took off his clothes, wrapped a thin bath towel around his waist, and walked up the steps into the water step by step. He did not reveal a genuine look of pain until the hot water touched his cold knees.
The bath was large, and even though it was only for the Pope, it was big enough for people to swim in it - Raphael certainly would not do such a thing, and he continued to walk inside until the warm water covered his legs and waist, and finally rippled gently under his chest. He stood in the middle of the pool, lowered his eyes, and endured the stinging sensation of his cold skin being suddenly warmed.
With wet blond hair scattered over his fair, naked skin, Narcissus in the water was slender and fragile, with water droplets condensed from mist hanging on his long eyelashes, precariously hanging in the corners of his eyes, as if a tear had been shed by God. Even the most hard-hearted person could not face such a heartbreaking scene calmly. He was like a flower that was casually broken and thrown into the water. Who would have thought that such a tired and broken person would actually try to lift up the rotten ship of Florence by himself?
The curtain that was hanging quietly suddenly wrinkled slightly. The collision of the cold and hot air currents inside and outside caused the mist on the surface of the pool to drift away. The Pope, who had closed his eyes as if he was asleep, suddenly opened his eyes and shouted, "Who are you? Who allowed you to come in?"
The man who came in heard the scolding, but he did not pause. A slender gloved hand pushed aside the curtain, and the silver-plated cane gently pressed on the marble floor, making a crisp sound with a subtle echo.
The iron-gray long hair was covered with a thin layer of water vapor in the hot and humid air, and the dark red lips looked even colder against the pale skin. Unlike the Pope's clear and transparent lavender eyes, the visitor's deep purple eyes were like a deep culvert, and no one could see the gloomy things flowing inside through the layer of mist.
Julius Portia was wearing a neat shirt, a long coat, and a silk scarf tied into a beautiful knot. A thumb-sized violet gem was inlaid on the scarf, echoing the color of its owner's eyes.
The patriarch of the Portia family, who was in his prime, stood at the edge of the bathing pool with his hands on his cane, dressed neatly and looking down at the people in the pool.
He looked calm, but Raphael saw that beneath his gentle and calm exterior he was on the verge of rage.
"I heard that you encountered some interesting things with François." The Secretary General of the Papal Palace said softly.
Raphael did not answer.
He knew that there must be Julius's men among his attendants, and this matter could definitely not be hidden from him, but that didn't mean he needed to give any explanation.
The Pope's silence seemed to be the final stone thrown into the volcano.
The polite and gentle secretary threw his cane hard to the side. The heavy ebony and marble collided with each other, making a sharp sound. Amid the reverberating sound, he raised his hand and pulled off his scarf. The expensive violet gem worth thousands of florins jumped into the water. The silk scarf was thrown aside, followed by the long coat, and then the boots.
The patriarch of the Portia family slowly rolled up his shirt sleeves, and then jumped into the pool wearing only a shirt and trousers. His ferocious and furious posture made even Raphael unable to help but take a step back.
“You’ve overstepped your boundaries, sir, you shouldn’t—” Before the young Pope could finish his words, the Secretary General of the Papal Palace broke through the water flow and came to him. The splashing water wet his iron-gray hair, and drops of water slid down his cheeks and chin. His thin dark red lips were tightly pursed, and the anger in his deep purple eyes was clearly visible.
“Shouldn’t I?” Julius’ voice was low but clear.
"So what you did was the right thing to do?" he asked coldly.
The thin silk shirt could hardly cover anything in the water, and the body with distinct texture exuded an oppressive heat. The Pope, who was in poor physical condition, could not endure the oppressive feeling of stripping away all external things and getting to the essence. Just like male animals in nature instinctively resisting the same sex showing off their strength, Raphael looked away.
But Julius was obviously not satisfied with his response.
"answer."
Said the patriarch of Portia, who is more tyrannical than anyone else.
Raphael was irritated by his commanding tone.
Who is qualified to speak to him like this? Especially Julius, the man who sheltered him and then abandoned him. Even if Raphael died again, he would not accept his arrogant and self-righteous protection, not to mention that such protection was inherently filled with distrust of him and pity for the weak.
"Julius Portia! The one standing before you is your monarch!"
Raphael said in a voice even colder than his.
This should have been a very ambiguous scene. Both people in the water had beauty beyond ordinary people. They should have been hugging or kissing, whispering soft and hot love words in the sparkling bathtub, instead of confronting each other like wild beasts, staring at each other with fierce and cold eyes, wishing to strangle each other, and neither of them willing to take a step back.
The author has something to say:
Bath! Wet play! [The pigeon that keeps up with the fashion rolled over in satisfaction
Dear guests, please don’t miss it if you pass by. Leave a comment and let love fill the world.
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