Alexander VI sat in his specially made chair, his grey eyes fixed on the marble globe not far away.

When the idea that the world is a sphere began to be accepted many years ago, the Church cleverly exploited this doctrine, which sounded strange at the time, and gave rise to the geocentric theory that everything in the world revolves around the earth.

Alexander VI, like his predecessors, didn't really care about who revolved around the earth or the sun, they only cared about whether the world revolved around them.

When Portugal and Spain were at odds over colonies to open up the New World, Alexander VI cleverly took advantage of this sudden event and turned the two most powerful maritime nations in the world into satellites orbiting around him.

At that time, as the decider of international affairs, Alexander VI used his skillful diplomacy to make himself the absolute center of the entire Christian world in an instant.

But today, Alexander VI was insulted by the greatest insult of his life!

When Gonzalo told him, in an arrogant tone, that he should reflect on the embarrassment he found himself in, and even more so to thank his benefactor with gratitude, at that moment Alexander VI's head was rising, his veins were bursting, and the painful feeling of his heart clenching together from humiliation even made his face feel numb and stiff.

He forced himself to calm down, otherwise he might faint or even never get up again, but even though he finally endured the torment moment that he would never forget with the restraint that others could not imagine, but looking at the countless pairs of eyes around him who witnessed him being completely insulted, Alexander VI finally failed to persevere, and he listened to Gonzalo's boastful account of the war with the greatest patience, and looked at the captives who passed by his throne as a show off, Looking at their eyes full of humiliation, Alexander VI felt that he could fully feel the humiliation they had suffered.

Eventually, when he left under the pretext of being unwell, he heard Gonzalo wish him a speedy recovery in an exaggerated but sarcastic tone, which made Alexander VI feel like a shameful deserter on the battlefield, and he had no choice but to flee in the face of a powerful enemy.

Where is the Pope, who was in high spirits before to arbitrate two powers? It's just a poor old man who hides in his room and sulks at the globe, a coward who doesn't even have the courage to refute in the face of humiliating him.

Alexander VI was a little angry with himself, he knew that he was indeed cowardly in the face of that Gonzalo, not only because of the man's almost suffocating strength and arrogance, but also because he had to be wary of this reckless warrior from the Iberian Peninsula.

Nomelo walked into the room at just the right time, looking at the Pope, whose face was still ugly, but at least recovering some blood, the secretary poured a glass of wine and sent it to Alexander VI.

"You should take care of yourself and all your followers," said the secretary very carefully, knowing that the Pope's sensitive nerves should not be stimulated at this time, "and your children, they are very worried about you, Lucrezia has offered to come to see you several times, and even said that if you don't see you again, she will come directly to the cathedral, and Giovanni and Caesar are also worried, they want you to have dinner with them. ”

"My children," Alexander VI looked up at Nomelo with some difficulty, as if he had been awakened from meditation at the secretary's words, and then rose from his chair with the help of the secretary, "I know they must be worried about me, and who else really cares about me, the pope who has been humiliated in public, and perhaps many of them should be toasting to this spectacle at this time." ”

Seeing Nomelo about to speak, Alexander VI waved his hand slightly: "I know you want to comfort me, but I have self-knowledge, there are many more people who hate me than love me, but if it weren't for this, I wouldn't be the Pope." ”

The secretary silently walked around the room with the Pope in his arms, and when he walked to the window, looking at the crowd in the bustling square outside, Alexander VI pointed outside.

"Look at those people, their extravagant and debaucherous lives are not much better than mine, but they can bring prostitutes and even ** into their rooms so justifiably, Nomelo I can assure you that if you lift a woman's skirt at random, you have a chance to find that there must be a man hidden between her legs, maybe two men sometimes. So none of them had the right to laugh at me, but it was their greatest shame that they could now revel in the square with the Aragonese who had just humiliated them all. ”

Hearing the Pope's words that he didn't know whether it was self-defense or sarcasm, Nomelo just shook his head slightly, as a good listener, he knew that he didn't need to say anything at this time, just listen quietly.

Sure enough, Alexander VI quickly continued: "That Córdoba would humiliate me so much because he thought I ought to bow down to him, or to his queen, but he forgot that this was the Vatican." ”

At this, Alexander VI's anger in his chest seemed to be slightly vented, and he turned and slowly walked back to his chair and sat down, and after this catharsis, his face looked slightly better than before.

The Pope's eyes were fixed on the globe again, but this time his eyes became sharp, and when he gently brushed the tip of his slightly eagle-hooked nose with his fingers, Nomelo had already perked up, and he knew that the Pope, who was skilled in diplomacy, was back, and now he was just waiting for him to find a way out of the predicament in front of him.

"Gonzalo was a very arrogant man," said Alexander VI slowly, "and he was able to have his current power only because of the patronage of the Queen of Castile, and we all know that the Queen liked this man, but I don't know what Ferdinand thought." ”

"Your Majesty, the king of Aragon also has a lot of trust in Gonzalo, otherwise after openly humiliating the king of Naples, who is also a member of the Aragon family, with his actions in Naples, his punishment is only a reprimand, which is enough to show that Gonzalo is favored in front of the two kings."

Nomelo carefully reminded that as a secretary, his duty is to tell the truth about all kinds of information he has, rather than just picking good things in order to please his employer, and Nomelo thinks he is still very conscientious at this point.

"That's what worries me the most!" Alexander VI slapped the armrest of his chair angrily, then clenched his fist hard and waved it between the two men, "You know Nomero, I don't think Ferdinand's ambition is at all less than Charlie's, maybe even greater. ”

The secretary nodded wordlessly, he knew that the Pope's worries were not cranky, as long as he thought about what Gonzalo had done in Italy in the past two years, if there was no support from Ferdinand behind him, he would not believe it.

"Is there no one who can stop him, or that we will immediately face another careerist after we have driven out one careerist?" Alexander VI muttered to himself in a low voice, "Can anyone tell us what we should do to get rid of this pesky guest?" ”

Pope Nomerlo's hated guest sounds like Gonzalo, but in fact it is Ferdinand, King of Aragon, whom he has begun to see as his great enemy.

"Maybe we should find friends who are strong enough, at least to let those people know that we have the same enemy."

As soon as he began to think of a way, Alexander VI immediately became active, and he was no longer the grumpy and depressed old man he had just been, but the Vatican Pope who liked to hide in his room and play tricks.

"There's something I think you already know," said Nomelo with a smile, "and on the way there, the Gombray prevented Gonzalo from trying to pass through the Arch of Constantine. ”

"I see, this is the only good news I've heard today, and I'd rather hear it than Gonzalo's boasting, so don't miss out on the details." Alexander VI asked with interest, knowing that Nomelo had told him this not just to make him happy.

Sure enough, after listening to Nomelo describe in as much detail as he knew what happened under the Arch de Triomphe of Constantine, the Pope's face was contemplative.

His chubby hands were crossed against his chin, and his slightly slumped body was even more curved in the chair, like a beast crouching in its den, waiting to attack, as soon as its prey entered its hunting range, it immediately pounced on it and tore the throat of its prey mercilessly.

"Nomelo, go and call Caesar."

The Pope gave a slow order, and the secretary immediately bowed carefully and left, and Alexander VI seemed to have completely forgotten what had just happened to him that humiliated him, and his eyes were sharp again, and his eyes were no longer so dazed when he stared at the globe.

When Caesar hurried into the Pope's living room, he saw Alexander VI slowly drinking wine with a wine glass, but to his horror, there was a conspicuous bottle of red liquid on the table where the wine was kept.

Canterella, Caesar's heart was frightened, and he immediately walked a few quick steps to Alexander VI and knelt down in front of him, holding his father's hand holding the wine glass.

"Father, what are you going to do, please don't do anything stupid." Caesar said with a panicked face that he had never felt so flustered before, and it was only then that he realized that everything he had come from his father, who was the Pope, and that if he had lost the patronage of the Pope, he would be nothing.

"My son, what do you think I'm going to do, do you think I'm going to risk going to hell to kill myself?" Alexander VI smiled slightly, "Even if I die in the future and really go to hell, it can only be because of something else and not because of suicide." ”

As he spoke, Alexander VI pulled up Caesar, who was kneeling on the ground, and he took the terrible bottle of poison from the table, which frightened many people, and gently stuffed it into his son's hand.

"Listen, I know you're worried about me, but today's events do remind me that since my uncle brought his family to Rome, we now consider ourselves Romans, but in fact the Romans don't approve of us, in their eyes we are outsiders from Valencia, country nobles from Castile, and even today Gonzalo dares to humiliate me like that, and it is because of this, perhaps in his eyes that our family has always been his queen's courtiers, And he is the favorite of the kings, which allows him to humiliate me and my family with impunity. ”

Caesar's face was gloomy, he knew that his father was right, and he could not forget the strange gaze that the people standing around him had cast at him when he heard Gonzalo openly reprimand his father in such a tone that no one could see, the shame he believed he would never forget!

"Caesar, our family-owned cantarella has helped us do a lot of things," Alexander VI patted his son's hand holding the fine poison bottle, "but cantarella can't help us gain respect, and if we want to be respected by others, we must let everyone know how great our family is, and let them know that this greatness can be continued." ”

Caesar's heart jumped suddenly, and he realized that his father seemed to be about to say something to him.

Sure enough, Alexander VI whispered, "I always hoped that you would succeed me, and Giovanni would inherit our family's title in Castile, but now it seems that all this has changed a little." Giovanni will also get his fiefdom in Castile, but I don't want you to be another pope, I want you to be a powerful monarch, if before I wanted you to be the emperor of Christendom for our family, now I want you to be the king of the secular world for the sake of your family, to be the master of the whole of Romagna. ”

Alexander VI's words made Caesar's heart tense from time to time, but then suddenly brightened!

He looked at his father in surprise, and for a while he didn't seem to understand the meaning of the words, until he finally let out an "oh" sound, and he grabbed his father's hand tightly as if he suddenly understood!

"Father, really, you promised me to renounce the priesthood? Are you willing to support me in my quest for worldly power? ”

"Yes, I agree with you to do this, and for the sake of our family, I hope you don't disappoint all of us."

"No, father, I will add a crown to our family's coat of arms, I believe I can do it, as long as I give me time I can even make all the city-states submit to the feet of the Borgias, father, I can do it."

Alexander VI patted his son's hand, his falcon-like gaze fixed on Caesar's face and looked at it carefully, and after a while he nodded slightly: "I know you can do Caesar, because you are smarter and more astute than anyone else, and I would have preferred you to sit there if I could." ”

Alexander VI said and pointed to the door, which Caesar knew led to the main hall of the cathedral, where there was a supreme throne.

"Father, believe me, I will bring no less honor to the Borgia family than I will do to become pope." Caesar confidently said, "You won't see me become pope, but you will see me become a monarch." ”

Alexander VI had a smile on his face, the first time he had smiled today, he gently kissed his son on the forehead, and then whispered: "I feel the need to remind you, pay attention to that Cambrai." ”

Seeing Caesar's face change slightly, Alexander VI gently patted him on the shoulder.

"Listen, there are many things you need to learn to become a good monarch, and one of them is to never let your personal likes and dislikes become a stumbling block to your gains," Alexander patiently enlightened his son, "so what you have to do now is not to go to that Gombray trouble, but on the contrary, you should look at that person with a fair eye, believe my son, I have a hunch that this Gombray may become a powerful enemy of Gonzalo." ”