Chapter 91 Hope Blue Diamond (VIII)
◎Information of will◎
Julius stood behind a long table. This room was located in the middle of several corridors in the flower hall. It was more like a small hall with four doors than a room. Craftsmen decorated it with gilded semicircular arches and carved hornbeam leaf patterns and lily patterns on them. Apart from the plaster flower stands placed around it, there was only a long empty table in the middle of the room.
This small flower hall has no specific use and no one will stay here for too long. Its only advantage is that it is located right in the center of several corridors, closest to all important places, and can observe the movements of most people in the Papal Palace.
Julius has been here for two days. Apart from visiting Raphael, he has spent all his time here except for sleeping. The long table is covered with various
Various maps and documents.
As he leaned his hands on the table in deep thought, a dull and melodious bell sounded from outside the window. The morning prayer bells in Florence rang on time every day. Julius raised his head as if waking up from a dream, pressed his sore eye sockets, and saw the milky blue morning light shining through the glass, casting a cold light on the ground that was completely different from the gas lamp.
It's a new day again.
The secretary general rubbed his face sleepily, and the door opposite him opened silently. Julius looked up and saw a ghost-like man in a black monk's robe walked in. The two looked at each other silently without saying anything, but seeing Ferrante standing skillfully on the other side of the table, it was obvious that the two had not been without any communication in the past few days.
“I didn’t find any suspicious signs.” Julius said tiredly. His voice was a little hoarse from not speaking for a long time, and he didn’t even utter the first two syllables.
Ferrante did not speak, but just lowered his head to look at the messy papers on the table. There was a small badge printed on the corner of each paper. In the dark blue circle was a small scale, and above the scale was an upright eye totem. This was the logo of the Arbitration Bureau headed by Ferrante. Documents printed with this seal were all secret documents of the Arbitration Bureau. Without the permission of the Pope and Ferrante, they could not be viewed unless they reached a certain level.
Julius walked aside, picked up the big-bellied crystal pot, and poured himself a glass of mead. The cold, sweet liquid poured into his throat, which made his somewhat confused mind suddenly clear. He held the crystal cup and turned to Ferrante: "How is the Holy See?"
Ferrante unfolded a folded blueprint and said calmly, "I just fell asleep. Dr. Polly said the medicine is working. Get more sleep these few days to regain your energy."
Julius nodded absentmindedly, turning the crystal cup in his hand. The octagonal crystal cup was carved with exquisite patterns. The light yellow mead in the cup glowed as bright as amber as he moved, casting a faint color on his clothes.
Raphael no longer had a fever, but he was still very weak. The doctors insisted on not letting him do any official business and he could only lie in bed to rest. Julius was happy with this. He only went to report some unimportant little things to Raphael regularly, and most of his time was spent here.
“…Nothing else?” Julius asked again, looking at the papers on the table.
Ferrante closed the map of Calais. The drawing drawn by the Holy Crow showed some special paths and landmarks in the city of Calais, but it was of no use to them at the moment.
“That’s all,” Ferrante replied simply.
He seldom spent time with Julius in private, except for some necessary business handovers. This was the first time they had spent so much time together, and Ferrante felt that the two of them might never get along no matter what. The reason was unclear, but it was just that their auras didn't match.
If he didn't need to investigate the reason that threatened Raphael and made him still like a frightened bird despite his illness, and Julius was also trying to get similar information from him indirectly, he would not have accepted the cooperation.
Despite this, he had to admit that Julius was quite capable. The Arbitration Bureau had countless secret reports, but Julius was able to sort out the general context and accurately find useful content in just a few days. This skill seemed simple, but you have to know that the documents of the Arbitration Bureau were all written by the Holy Crows themselves. Many of them were born in poverty, had never been to school, and could not write. They could only express their meanings with pictures and simple common symbols. It was indeed a remarkable thing that Julius could recognize their intentions and obtain information from them.
All the documents related to the assassination of the Pope and the situation in Calais were sent here, and the two of them took shifts to organize and analyze them, but even after reading everything and clearly realizing that Calais might have had a bigger conspiracy, they could not find any information that would make Raphael so uneasy.
The number of the Holy Crows in Calais was decreasing at an unnoticeable rate, and even Ferrante did not notice this change. Many Holy Crows had their own jobs, and most of the Holy Crows that provided intelligence were traveling merchants. It was normal for merchants to travel around, until Raphael ordered him to investigate the situation of the Holy Crows in Calais. He put all the intelligence together and was surprised to find that compared with previous years, the intelligence sent back from Calais this year and last year had dropped by nearly one third.
But even if they discovered that Calais might have the intention of starting a war, it would not make Raphael so worried - his worry was different from his concern for the Papal States. That kind of uneasiness and fear was about his own safety. Neither Ferrante nor Julius could find more relevant information.
This left them puzzled.
Ferrante endured it for a few days, but finally couldn't bear it any longer. When Raphael was almost recovered and could get out of bed to walk and breathe, he asked indirectly: "Do you still dream these nights?"
Raphael's face suddenly stiffened.
They were walking in the garden, and Raphael casually picked a Margaret rose that was crowded outside the bamboo fence. This rose, named after a princess of Roman, had a large and thick disk, and the rich red stamens spread all around and finally turned into plain white. Raphael turned the flower stalk with a gentle smile on his face, but he became secretly alert in his heart.
"I don't remember what I dreamed about." Raphael's tone was the same as usual.
He was a little disgusted with this topic, just like he hated people touching a thorn that had grown in his flesh, and subconsciously wanted to change the subject: "...How is the situation of the Holy Raven in Calais?"
Ferrante noticed his disgust and answered obediently: "It's similar to what you expected before. The number of merchants in Calais is gradually decreasing. They have increased their control over border cities. They may be preparing for war."
He used the more euphemistic word "maybe", but they both knew that this guess was the fact.
Raphael stopped in front of the fountain. He stared at the sparkling water in the fountain pool and seemed to have made up his mind: "Let Julius come to see me."
He casually placed the flower in Ferrante's palm and looked into his deep blue eyes: "You know what I'm going to say to him, don't you?"
Ferrante grasped the rose stem in silence and made no answer.
Does he know? Ferrante walked in the deep corridor holding the flower and smiled coldly and mockingly. He knew, of course, that he had personally brought Ashur to the Holy See through the secret passage, and she was even hiding in the stronghold he had set up. He was not a fool and could always make some guesses of his own based on the Pope's subsequent actions.
He didn't care about His Majesty's background, nor did he care about what kind of power His Majesty would possess. He only cared about His Majesty himself - but perhaps... Ferrante thought, His Majesty would not be happy that he had "guessed" these.
When Julius found Raphael, the young Pope was sitting in his private library.
The library is well lit. Nuns wearing tricorn hats with long white headscarves are cleaning the flowers in the marble vats in the library. They take out the withered bouquets that have been soaked for a day, carefully pick up the petals floating on the water, and then insert the freshly picked bouquets one by one, strictly adjusting the angle. Monks carrying spherical insect-repellent incense burners are walking around the bookshelves in circles. The smell of moisture-proof and insect-repellent wormwood floats in the air. The glass dome is covered with branches and leaves of red pine trees, and little squirrels are jumping lightly on it.
The Pope was sitting next to the bookshelf near the dome. Colorful light shone through the stained glass windows that made of angel portraits. The gorgeous light fell on his pale face, which had just recovered from a serious illness, revealing a kind of enchanting and strange beauty. This beauty was somewhat strange in the solemn and silent library. His loose white robe hung down beside him, like a white bird with broken wings, perching lonely and tiredly on a high branch.
He seemed like he would fall at any moment.
Julius couldn't stop his weird imagination.
“It’s dangerous there.” Various scenes of blood splattering flashed through Julius’ mind, but his voice remained steady. He stood below, looking up at the empty Pope at his feet. The spacious and sound-retaining design of the library allowed him to hear his voice echoing throughout the entire library without having to exert any effort.
The nuns put down the last flower, lovingly pointed it in the direction of the Pope, then bowed deeply to the Pope above, and filed out of the library.
When the last person left, a golden bell with a clapper for small wings was gently hung on the door, symbolizing that the Pope was visiting and no one was allowed to enter without being summoned.
There was a book spread on Raphael's lap. Julius couldn't see the words on the cover from a distance. Raphael was not reading the book, but was turning his head to the side, quietly looking at the scenery outside the stained glass window.
He had lost a lot of weight. His childhood experiences and the fears of adolescence had destroyed his body. Raphael had always been thinner than his peers, but this time he was even thinner. The clothes that originally fit him looked empty when hung on him, like a white bird with overly lush and gorgeous feathers, making people fear whether it would be crushed by such gorgeous feathers.
"Where in this world is not dangerous?" Raphael answered softly. He turned around and looked down at his secretary general with his head down. Every word he said was meaningful. "A person walking on the road may be hit by a carriage and a person lying in bed may die of a stroke. The foreseeable danger is the one that we don't need to worry about the most."$$
Julius looked at him. "So you want to try the danger of falling from the sky?"
He rolled up his sleeves slowly and spread his arms. The smooth and undulating lines of the muscles on his forearms stretched beautifully with his movements. "Come on, Rafa, let me catch you."
Raphael leaned forward slightly. There was a height of about seven meters below him. It was uncertain whether Julius could catch him. Even if he did, they would both die.
"Oh," Raphael raised the corner of his mouth strangely, "You seem to be inviting me to commit suicide for love."
Julius's deep purple eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and his iron-gray hair shone like silver. He stretched out his arms, his expression unchanged: "Then do I have the honor?"
This is too much, Raphael thought. Although he wanted to take advantage of Julius' emotions, such a conversation was a bit dangerous.
"You shouldn't say such things to the Holy See," Raphael said finally.
But his posture never changed, like a swan standing on tiptoe lightly at the edge of a pond, reservedly preparing to test the water's temperature.
"There are many things in the world that shouldn't be done, but people still do them." Julius responded using Raphael's own words.
Raphael seemed to sigh silently. He stared at Julius quietly for a long time, and then pushed the heavy book in his arms down - what fell down was not the book, but a thin piece of parchment.
The yellowed parchment rolled up and floated down in the air. Their eyes followed it at the same time. Julius noticed that for a moment, there was a flash of regret in Raphael's eyes, as if he wanted to reach out and grab it. The moment he was about to let go of the edge of the stairs, Julius' heart suddenly rose to the peak. All the muscles in his body tensed up, and he instinctively made a gesture to catch the person.
At this moment, he really wanted to catch him, even if the price was his own life.
The parchment fell to the ground, and Raphael slowly straightened up. There was a frozen calmness between his eyebrows, as if he was not the one who regretted just now. He stared at Julius and asked an irrelevant question: "Are you hiding something from me? The kind that you have been hiding from me for many years?"
Julius's eyelashes trembled slightly, and his deep purple pupils showed a complex emotion. Raphael suddenly turned his head and exhaled, waving his hand tiredly, refusing to hear the answer: "The secretariat is very busy, you go first, I'll sit for a while."
He no longer looked at Julius.
Julius bent down and picked up the old parchment that fell at his feet. He just glanced at it twice, and his pupils suddenly contracted. He suddenly looked up at Raphael, who only left him a silent and silent profile.
In a flash, Julius had already figured out why Raphael suddenly rushed to Roman and was
After learning the causes and consequences of the assassination, he suddenly understood the purpose of his question. The Secretary General of the Papal Palace held the will written by the Queen twenty-five years ago, stood there for a while, pursed his lips, and finally slowly left the library.
The author has something to say:
Raphael still doubted Julius. He felt that Julius could not be completely ignorant of his life experience. As for whether Julius actually knew it... emmmmm, it's hard to say.
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