I Am Louis XIV

   Chapter 155 The Black Death (4)

Under the torches, there are faces full of menacing expressions. If the carriage came from the direction of Nancy, this kind of expression would not be surprising, but the carriage came from Verdun, and such behavior is open to question. .

The flickering fire light not only illuminated the faces of those with good intentions, but also illuminated the armor of steel and cowhide, the cold light of the sword and the crossbow passed the indifferent eyes of the coachman, and finally fell on the most richly dressed man in the crowd— Said to be the most beautiful, because he wore a steel armor that was obviously tailor-made. The surface of the armor was gilded, engraved with curly grass patterns, and there was a family crest on his chest. : "What?" he asked, "Is even the Viscount of Revell running out to rob now?"

Since this... Mr. Viscount wears such armor, he didn't want to hide his identity, but the other party even guessed his purpose so rashly, and he couldn't help but be full of anger-although the lord of Levine was really very angry in the past few hundred years. Enthusiasm for robbing merchants is true, but now that lords can collect taxes from commerce, minerals and land, this kind of thing is not enough.

   "I'm not here to rob." Surprisingly, the viscount was unusually calm: "I heard terrible news."

   "Oh, what kind of news?" asked the coachman, who was still sitting high in the carriage, motionless, and did not feel that this was a great humiliation for a nobleman.

The Viscount's eyes slid from the driver to the door that was always closed, and the curtain on the glass window was pulled tightly without revealing any gaps, which made people wonder if it had been fixed to the window frame. Up: "Tell the master here, who are you and where are you going?"

   "We were sent here by an honorable man to do a very important thing. As for what it is, Mr. Viscount, you have no right to know."

   "Nancy further ahead, the people of Lorraine are running to Verdun, and you are doing the opposite. It is really perplexing," said Monsieur Viscount.

   "I don't have to explain it to you."

   "But to pass through my territory, you must have my permission."

  The coachman was silent for a while, "I have the permission of the king."

Mr.    seemed to be waiting for this sentence, and as soon as the sentence landed, he smiled: "Show me, sir, it's not that I don't want to believe you, but your behavior is really weird."

The closed window suddenly opened, and Mr. Viscount took a step back in fright, but then stopped again and stretched out a hand from the window, his pale, slender fingers holding a brass letterbox, Mr. Viscount. One of the attendants stepped forward to take it. The Viscount took out the document inside and looked at it. There was indeed the king's signature and seal on it. His smile became even bigger. inside.

   Some other people wearing cloaks and pulling up their hoods surrounded them. Under the wide cloaks there was the sound of steel crashing. It seemed that they were not unarmed farmers either.

   "What do you want to do?" asked the driver.

   "Fulfill the duties that God has given us," said the head of the group. He raised his head, and his hood showed gray hair. He was not young, but his eyes were still sharp.

   The man in the carriage sighed.

   "It turns out that the Roman Church had such an idea." He said, and from the moment he uttered the first word, the seemingly confident and calm old man showed a look of disbelief.

   "Barras, it's you." The door of the carriage opened, and what came down was not the Vampire Prince, as the former chief judge thought, but the current chief judge Elarius.

   The two presiding judges face to face ironically. Elalius smiled, as gentle and respectful as every time he had seen Barras before, but Barras knew that his true face was the exact opposite of his appearance.

Ever since an ordinary judge became the chief judge, he knew that this young man who was always smiling had colluded with Cardinal Mazarin, otherwise, how could the Paris Inquisition be so quickly defeated in hand? I'm afraid he has been waiting for a long time, but Barras also has nothing to say about it, because first of all he betrayed the inner world, the king, and the bishop of Mazarin. He went to Rome, but it was a pity. Things did not go as smoothly as the Pope and he thought, the king was safe, Paris was at peace, and the Bishop of Mazarin even took the opportunity to bring the Inquisition under his command.

   And their second attempt failed.

Erael looked at the hand of the former Grand Inquisitor Barras. There was no bishop's ring on that hand. Is it for this mission, or... the Pope did not fulfill his promise, it seems that it is the latter, after all Balas came forward as a church messenger this time-perhaps with this credit, he will be a bishop or an archbishop when he returns, but since, their conspiracy has been guessed by Elari...even Even the king didn't make a wrong decision in a hurry, he appeared like a clown.

  ————

   Let's turn the time back a little, on the night the King only learned of the Nancy Incident.

  Since they knew that the vampires could ignore the plague and come and go freely, then only they could complete the task of bringing Philip, Duke of Orleans out of Nancy, but just before the king made a decision, he saw Elaius.

The king still knew a little about Elarius. This daring fellow seems to be born with nothing that can limit him, except for the people in the world. He may be pious, but he is pious. Not the Roman Church, but the real God, and it is for this reason that he only hates the Roman Church, but has no reverence, and he does not have the innate superiority of wizards to other people, including kings, or mortals. Attitude, he... It should be said that he doesn't care about them at all. From beginning to end, he maintains his attitude on the relationship between the employer and the employer.

Maybe someone else would be dissatisfied with this attitude, such as the former bishop of Mazarin, but Louis didn't care, there were too many such people in his time, and Elarius and his clan were still quite professional Moral, as far as he knew, the two monks around him had never really fallen asleep since Dunkirk's omission - they used esoteric techniques to keep themselves awake, so even if they switched every once in a while , their lifespan was irreparably damaged.

The king was speechless about this, and in fact he had nothing to complain about the Dunkirk assassination, for a number of reasons - must be blamed, first of all himself, not only insisting on completing the entry into the city Ceremony, but also forgot to bring the cat, otherwise he can at least escape. So the king can only give them a lot of assistance - from wheat to armor, it is said that they are still fighting werewolves and wizards in the inner world, but since the Mancini family bowed their heads to the king, these monks in the inner world also have a trace A chance to breathe, the wizard and they still hate each other, but there is no large-scale war.

   But just to be a crow that brings bad news, it’s not enough to let the chief judge come here in person. It can only be said that apart from the changes in the Roman church, what else should he be aware of?

What did    perceive? Bishop Mazarin said that since King Arthur, as long as he is a king, he will inevitably keep a wizard by his side, even the most devout king, just like they have a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, and use werewolves or Goblin and monster rulers are not uncommon. Louis keeps wizards and werewolves, and has a close relationship with the blood prince. Maybe no one knows about it for a while, but the church must be clear, but they will not easily identify a king as suspected of heresy. , which is too dangerous for the Church of Rome - they need solid evidence, or even half-truths, that they want to shake Louis' position in the hearts of the nobles and the populace, just as they had shaken the Holy Rome Throne of Emperor Henry IV.

At this point, the development of the matter has become clear. Although the church will use the plague to teach the French King Louis XIV, who almost repeated the incident in Avignon, a profound lesson, but also to make France weaken again, lest the church be attacked. The second real threat, at the same time, the Duke of Orleans, who was serving as the governor of Lorraine, also gave them an opportunity. If the king ignored it, or reluctantly gave up, they would definitely take the opportunity to provoke the relationship between the clan and the king. The king wants to ensure that his younger brother is safe, isn't the blood family who will not be affected by the plague the best person for help?

But the church is not even willing to give up a cardinal, what is here is just Ballas, a poor **** who can be given up at any time, when he saw Elarius, he showed a look of despair, and he could return to Rome , can continue to be his monk or priest, but it is impossible to go further in this life...

   "What about those vampires?" he asked.

Elaho glanced at him with the look of a madman and waved his hand, so starting from the coachman, everyone left the carriage and took off their hoods. They were all monks with their hair trimmed into St. Paul's style, and their expressions were solemn. , They are both contemptuous and sympathetic to this former great judge. Maybe Ballas is just tired of being a chess piece or a tool, a weapon, but he chose the wrong person, the fall of the Roman church, others don’t know, they Still not clear? If it was only for power and pleasure, he should not have chosen Rome. The political system of Rome was determined in the first hundred or two hundred years after the birth of the church. As aliens, they were excluded from the beginning. How could those bishops easily Allowing an outsider to join it, not to mention that Ballas is still a member of the inner world. The bishops of Rome only hope that they can be enslaved like bulls and horses, but they will not be on an equal footing with bulls and horses.

"There are no vampires, there are only enemies of vampires." Elarius drew a cross on his chest. "We are going to investigate whether the plague in Nancy was caused by wizards or dark creatures." He looked to hide himself Viscount Revigny behind the priest: "Mr. Viscount, you can return the king's paper to us."

Viscount Revigny hesitated for a while, then suddenly flashed before his eyes, and the iron glove was empty. He looked in horror at Ballas, the bishop's envoy from Rome, only to find that his face was sinking, and he said nothing. Inside, the monks outside the carriage each hung a silver cross, gleaming in the firelight, with ruddy complexion and calm posture, and they did not look like the legendary vampire,

Elaho had no intention of continuing to entangle with them. Since the people here were just abandoned sons, he ordered two monks to step forward. The moving tree moved aside, the driver and passengers got into the carriage, and the carriage galloped away again, leaving the bewildered group of people behind.

  ———

  Since the king already knew the church's plans, he could not throw himself into the trap. The person Balas was waiting for, or in other words, vampires did not need to travel long distances like humans. They disguised themselves as doctors, plague doctors, and always wore black cloaks at the time, with elbow-length cloaks. Gloves, with a beak mask on his face, looking through brass-rimmed circle glasses. With blurry lenses and heavy clothes, it is difficult for the sun to harm them, and people avoid them even more. They gallop their horses in the daytime, and leave their horses at night, turning into smoke and being caught in the wind. Pushing on, they or the king wouldn't care about that little money for horses anyway.

   Therefore, when they arrived in Lorraine, they were even earlier than Elarius and the others, because they could walk from the wilderness, and they would never meet people from the church.

It's just that when they turned into bats and passed through the night Nancy, they couldn't help but feel a shudder. The viciousness of the church was so unimaginable that these inhumans could hardly imagine. From the sky, all they saw were groups of people. Either on their backs or on their backs, but more people are climbing the castle, like swarms of ants climbing a wine glass full of honey, illuminating the forest on fire, dense The smoke rises directly into the dark night sky, and the firelight illuminates the smoke bamboo, which changes from coal black to red to bright golden yellow. This kind of scenery is refreshing, if you don't care about its origin.

"When will we enter the castle? Your Highness?" asked an earl under Theoderic. As a member of the Vandra blood family, after taking off the mask, a pale and elegant face was revealed, except for the pair of With blood-red eyes, probably no one would regard him as an outlier, but his stable position in the Fanzhuo family means that his hands must be stained with a lot of blood.

"It's not too late, we have to enter the castle before dawn." Theoderic said, because of the witch's raven, they knew that Philip the Duke of Orleans had not contracted the plague yet, but the black death always spread quietly. Silently, no one knows when the pustules will develop on the body and the fever will start.

   (end of this chapter)