Cesare de Como. The bastard son of King Leo III and the son if Count Como on the family register, he has always dissatisfied with his life. His glory was always right in front of him, but just before he came into his hands he would be taken by someone else, someone lesser that him. The title of prince in the hands of Alfonso, a boy who smells like milk, was a representative example.
He occupied balcony seat on the right side of the central corridor of Cathedral, but he was still unsatisfied. This is not the balcony seat at the top, where the 'real royal family' gathers to watch the Grand Mass, but the balcony seat installed one floor below it. The king always watched the Grand Mass with the Queen and their cute puppy-like son, whom they didn't get along with, from the balcony seat on the top right. The atmosphere on the balcony seats, where the King and his wife were gathered, was always cold, but despite this, Leo III never stepped onto the lower balcony seats full of laughter and jokes. It was in the inner chambers, not in public, that Cesare and the Countess of Rubina could occupy Leo III. All his attention was on the balcony seat in the top right corner, but he could never look up because of his pride. It was terrifying to imagine that, while Cesare himself was looking up from below, Alfonso, who had done nothing with his own hand, met the gaze looking down from above. Cesare hated kneeling, looking up from below.
Downstairs, for distraction, in the Great Hall, the beautiful Isabella, the daughter of the Cardinal, strutted across the central aisle of the Great Hall. I Thought it was bad taste to evaluate the act itself, but the sight of a beautiful 17 year-old girl acting like a fairy in excitement was good to see itself. Isabella had the magic to attract the attention of the crowd. When he looked down from above, she was spectacular. Following her steps, the heads of the men turned towards the central corridor one after another.
'Well, this isn't even a wheelhouse.'
Cesare laughed inwardly at the merchant downstairs who were possesses by women and could not control their heads. He thought he was special. The King's eldest son, born of royal lineage. It was only natural that he, who was superior in lineage, had all of the world. And the best mate for him, the best male, would be Isabella de Mare, the most admired female in all of San Carlo. He wanted to have Isabella. The ruby size of a fist brought by a merchant from the Republic of Porto last month, a Moorish slave with an unusual dark sin, and a cannon, a new item from the Duchy of Valois, were in the same context as what he wanted. Rather than being interested in the object itself, he wanted the admiration of those around him to be poured out on Cesare himself, who had the object.
'As expected of Count Cesare, don't all the best course horses belong to him?'
'It's only a steed, all the beauties of San Carlo are his captives.'
'To have even Isabella de Mare! As expected, Count Cesare is amazing!'
The corner of his mouth naturally went up as he imagined that the crowd who were swarming with him while making nonsensical jokes would lift him up. Downstairs, a golden girl looked at him and smiled cutely. For a shy lady to show interest in him so boldly was a sign that a gentleman had to give back. He nodded his head and returned a reply to her flirtation.
'Sooner or later, I'll have to ask Cardinal de Mare one more time about his intentions about the wedding. I'll try my luck when I see his father next month.'
While looking at Isabella greedily, Cesare caught the eyes of a dark-haired girl following Isabella. The dark-haired girl's gloomy and stern look stood out awkwardly between the gorgeous Isabella and the gorgeous Lucrezia. He asked his mother, Countess Rubina, who was behind him.
"Mother, what about that dark girl in the house of Cardinal de Mare?"
Countess Rubina answered without raising her head while trimming her nails with a long file.
"She is Cardinal de Mare's second daughter from another mistress. People said that Queen Margaret liked her already."
"What the hell is she looking at?"
"Don't judge people by their appearance alone. Seeing that little thing has already caught the eye of the fussy Count Margaret, it's not ordinary bet."
"Where does a girl spend her clever stuff?"
Countess Rubina opened her thin eyes and looked at her son."
"Do you think this mother came here because she has a pretty face?"
"Is not it?"
Countess Rubina, a cold-looking and thin-lined beauty who looked just Cesare, looked disapprovingly at her son, who rebelled against his thick hair.
"You pitiful child."
At that time, the pipe organ of Cathedral began to play solemnly. It was the tune that signaled the beginning of the sermon. With the music in the background, a man dressed in a coarse burlap and wearing a flat hat of a priest climbed lazily to the main altar. He was an unusually tall man, with one beaky eye in a hollowed-out orbit, and a shapely light in his eyes.
"I think the sermon is about to begin. That person must be the Apostle of Aseretto."
Cesare pretended to concentrate on the sermon, despite his innermost desire to deflect his mother's anger. Inside the Cathedral, which had been noisy, gradually became quiet as the apostle of Aseretto went up to the altar. The atmosphere was more focused and full of anticipation than usual when waiting for Cardinal de Mare's sermon. In contrast to the sermons of Cardinal de Mare in Latin, the sermons of the Apostle of Aseretto were in the common Etruscan-Aseretto language.
"He was born as a human."
His sermon provocative from the first word.
"Born as a shepherd's son in Yesak's barn, he laughed, lived, and learned as a human being until he was commanded by the Holy Spirit at the age of thirty to become the son of the Holy God."
People held their breath and focused on the Apostle of Aseretto.
"Only when the Holy God chose him as his son through the first sacrifice, did he, who was born as a human, become a saint and attain the same divinity as the Holy God."
Upon reaching this point, audience reactions varied dramatically. some were enthusiastically positive, while others looked uncomfortable.
'Then Yesak's Gon was not the son of the Holy Spirit from the birth, but was originally the son of a man?'
'Isn't that too radical?'
The Apostle sermon in Aseretton elicited very different reactions from the people. The popularity of his sermon among the poor and needy was explosive. The story that even the most humble person can learn, and practice the teachings of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will personally choose him as his son and place him on the highest throne in the thousand-year-old kingdom under the heavens. On the other hand, to the educated class and the ruling class, the sermon of the Apostle of Aseretto was itself unsettling. To the nobles, the Apostle of Aseretto's sermon that 'the least can ascend to the highest' was a grave threat. The vested interest of Cathedral and its affiliated Cathedra; taught the believers as follow.
'Noble spirits are born into royalty or nobles and do good deeds, and lowly spirit are born as commoners and make atonement. He has to do a lot of good deeds to be born as a nobleman in his next life, and royalty and nobles are those who have proved themselves to be people with great qualities in the eyes of the Holy God.'
Royalty and nobility were able to obtain the legitimacy of their rule based on this teaching. It was a challenge to the existing social order to say that a commoner could become a son of God by jumping over this stage. To the clergy, the Apostle of Aseretto posed an even more practical problem, The creed of the Chatedral consisted of the 'meditation record' left by Gon of Yesak and the 'gospel' left by six disciples of Gon of Yesak. Every single punctuation mark, even a single typo, was endowed with a sacred meaning. The authority of Cathedral mainly came from 'Meditation. When the secular power took action against the Cathedral, the Cathedral excerpted a line that refuted it from the meditation record and pointed it out. When combined with excommunication, which is the authority of the King, there was nothing that would work.
A few years ago, when the Archduke of Aseratto tried to oust his mother-in-law and take the 7 year old Bianca of Taranto as his second wife, Ludovico was defeated by the torch of the monarch of neighboring countries, including LEO III, who feared that the inheritance of the Taranto domain would pass to Asceretto. The Emperor resolutely pushed the passaged from the 'Meditation' to the Archduke of Aseretto.
"Be hospitable to your wife."
"Marriage is sacred."
"Let the old man not covert the young."
When the divine authority of a meditation book is acknowledge, those excerpts were the categorical imperative. He just had follow it unconditionally. On the other hand, if the Meditations, like the Gospels, come down as mere human language written when Gon of Yesak was human, then there is no room for interpretation.
"Be hospitable to your wife."
If these are words of a man and not of a God, then might not they apply to a jealous and mean wife rather than a generous wife who deserves hospitality?
"Marriage is sacred."
Marriage is sacred because it gives birth to a blessed heir a the bosom of the Holy Spirit. If the wife is a virgin, should that marriage also be respected?
"Let the old man not covert the young."
Wouldn't it be okay of the young man's mental age was precocious? Isn't it fitting that the above passage be exempted if the young love the older first? The Archduke of Aseretto, unbale to withstand the threat of excommunication based on excerpts from the Meditations of Pope Ludivico, had to give up Bianca of Taranto. However, after the incident of coveting Bianca of Taranto was thwarted, the Archduke of Aseretto gave full support to the Apostle of Aseretto, a man who at the time was a simply called 'Priest Alejandro'. He gave him, who was only a regular priest, a palace hall where he could preach, and set aside money from the Archduke's budget to use for feeding and clothing the young priests who came to visit him. The result after just a few years was this. Priest Alejandro, now an Apostle of Aseretto, was threatening the clergy and nobles with the people on his back.
Ariadne stood behind Lucrezia, Isabella, and Arabella like a shadow at the far end of the balcony on the left side of the great hall, then quietly rose out of sight. Arabella stood up and looked at Ariadne, but Ariadne quietly whispered to Arabella.
'I'm going to the bathroom for a minute.'
Ariadne took off all the golds earrings Lucrezia had given her and put then in her sleeves. A perfect stage required a perfect outfit. Ariadne held her breath and descended the steep stairs to the first floor of the Great Hall. hiding behind the stair railing and waiting for the decisive moment. The sermon of the Apostle of Aseretto was gradually approaching the climax.
"Gon of Yesak is, after all, a son of a human!"
While the middle-aged man's heavy baritone voice reverberated throughout the Great Hall and the audience listened to it with mixed feelings, a husky voice, heavy for a girl and pleasant to listen to resonated through the space.
"Shame on you!"
It was Ariadne.
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