Following the Tiber River downward, near the southwest of the city of Rome, the Tiber River suddenly widens, and the view on the other side of the river is blurred by the distance.

Here, the Tiber makes a modest turn, with a spindle-shaped island in the middle of the river temporarily dividing the Tiber into two tributaries, the upper and lower tributaries, and then rejoining at the other end of the island and continuing downstream.

This small island is called Tiber Island, although the island is not large, there is a very famous building on it, the resting place of St. Gufra.

In the history of the city of Rome, there is no shortage of saints who died for their faith, from the earliest St. Paul to the countless later sages who sacrificed their lives to spread their teachings, there are many stories, in fact, some are inspiring, some are fascinating, and some are melancholy.

Among these early martyrs, St. Guphra was a very unusual man.

This man was almost useless for the first half of his life, and even a swinger who spent all his days drinking, and even after he became a monk, he was not so peaceful, so he soon got tired of the hard life in the monastery, escaped from the monastery in the name of preaching, and then relied on a beautiful face to seduce rich ladies everywhere.

Such a person could not have had anything to do with becoming an admirable saint, but many wonderful things happened like this.

At the age of almost 40, the idle monk suddenly became a different person, he abandoned his debauchery and cut off all women, and began to devote himself to the will of God, and 10 years later, after a prayer, he suddenly claimed to have received a revelation from God, and then he decided to build a monastery on this small island in the middle of the Tiber.

And at that time he swore that the monastery must have been raised by himself and would not accept any large donations.

His wish was obviously not so realistic, after all, such a monastery could not be built with his own squandered property and his little fundraising, but Gufra seemed to be enchanted and began to raise money everywhere to build this monastery that would never seem to be possible to be built.

The second half of Gufra's life was spent in near-total misery, with many offers to help him, but he refused, and in the end he was not able to build the monastery until his death.

By the time he died, the monastery had only built a foundation that seemed to be far away.

But he was respected by the people, who erected a tombstone in memory of him in the center of the foundation of the unbuilt monastery, and many people took him as proof that God had saved a fallen man on earth, and for this reason, he was canonized more than a century after Gufra's death.

As for the monastery on Tiber Island, there were originally people who were willing to pay for the construction of it, but this proposal was not agreed, because the Church thought that the unbuilt monastery seemed to be more truly a true expression of the meaning of St. Guphla's goal, although he could not be achieved in his lifetime, but he could finally be buried here, and still be able to receive God's forgiveness and glory.

However, on the other side of the island, not too far from the resting place of St. Gufra, another monastery was built to commemorate the example of the prodigal son's return.

The terrain of Tiber Island, which is the northern end of the resting place of St. Gufra, is higher than the southern end of the monastery, and from the entrance of the monastery you can faintly see some of the horizon on the edge of the distance, but because of the low terrain, you can't see anything else.

After a few days of icy weather, the city of Rome was plunged into continuous rain, the sky was gray and the sun could not be seen, standing at the door of the monastery, a stream of cold wind poured directly into the collar of the clothes, and no one wanted to go out at such a time.

Some of the land on Tiber Island belonged to the monastery, and some vegetables were grown in the land to feed the small number of monks for their daily lives, and the rest was sold in the market.

Every day people would rowed boats from the city to the island to tend to the land, and then the vegetables would be transported to the city market to be sold, and there was no one else on the island except the monks in the monastery.

Because of the rain, the river surface was a little unstable, and the two people who rowed on the island every day shrunk their bodies as much as possible in the not too thick felt robes, holding the oars and rowing hard, and the surrounding water surface was hit by the vast water curtain countless shallow pits, and the rain splashed on the face looked very cold.

"Who's that?"

A man on the boat suddenly pointed to the level in the distance, and his companion looked back, and through the curtain of water, he could see that a wooden boat about the size of them was rowing on the river in the distance, and it was sailing with the waves of the water towards Tiber Island.

"Who else is coming to the island in this kind of ghost weather?" The man I saw earlier muttered.

"Maybe it's because the day of Santa Guphra is approaching," the companion said with a cross on his chest, "May Santa Guphra bless, the city of Rome is so uneasy these days." ”

"yes, things always happen, but let's hope those damn French guys get out of here, they've been in Rome long enough."

The two men began to curse the Frenchman as they rowed in the direction of the abbey, and soon forgot about the sight of a boat on the river.

Unbeknownst to them, the boat rowed along the shore of the island to the northern end of the island until it found a suitable place to dock, and then the people on board jumped into the icy water and dragged the boat ashore.

The man walked through the slippery mud towards the monastery foundations where St. Guphra would never be built, and when he climbed to the platform of the monastery foundations, which were made of large blocks of rammed stones, he saw a figure standing in front of the tombstone of St. Guphla in the middle of the foundation.

The man who had just come ashore walked over the stone foundations crisscrossed the ravines and ridges, and came to a stop not far from the man.

"Saint-Gufra has spent his life pursuing dreams that will never come true," the man who had been waiting before slowly turned around, and he removed the hood from his head, revealing Crion's face that closely resembled that of Quinto, "so can anyone tell me what he is really after?" ”

"What would a playboy go for, money, wine, beautiful women?" The people who went to the island also took off the scarf they wore on their face to protect themselves from the cold, but he still wore a mask on his face, and if Nashan saw this person, he would be able to recognize this person as the same masked man who had kidnapped Joanna during the previous attack on Marino Palace.

"It took forty years for St. Guphra to know what he was going to explore, and then he could abandon everything he was obsessed with and serve God wholeheartedly, then the previous forty years were God's test for him, in fact, everyone is going through this kind of test, but there are not many who can really endure it like St. Guphra and finally understand the meaning." Kryan said with a little emotion, he reached out and stroked the tombstone that was unusually cold in the rain, and then looked at the masked man, "What did you come to me for?" ”

"I'm here to warn you," the masked man took a step forward, his eyes shining brightly, "you've gone too far, this is Rome and not Sicily, but you dare to kill people here casually, and it's the Archbishop of Frankfurt who killed you, don't you know how much trouble this will cause us?" ”

Clarion looked at the man with blazing eyes, his palm slapped lightly on the tombstone again, and then turned to face the other party: "So those old people let you come?" ”

"Yes, it was the 'old men' who asked me to come," the Masked Man walked a few steps earlier to Crean, "We know that you have always cared about the death of your brother Kunto, but you must remember that this is not Sicily, and that stupid brother of yours is not worth your thoughts about him, you yourself know very well that he doesn't know a lot of things, he doesn't even know who he is working for, so he dies in a daze." Is it worth it for this? ”

"He's my brother," Clarion clenched his fist and slammed it the tombstone, splashing water into the masked man's eyes, "I know what you've done in Palermo, maybe the Bishop of Palermo Alfonso doesn't know you, but I know how greedy you people are, you're just a bunch of people who don't have any faith, and it's even more disgusting than those loan sharks, otherwise you wouldn't have betrayed Kunto." ”

"We didn't betray your brother, he was careless, and he can only blame himself for being stupid," the masked man's eyes showed anger, and he took two steps up again, his eyes behind the eyes fixed on Clarion's eyes, "Listen, Kunto is dead, and" The old men're not prepared to pursue the things you did in Sicily, so that's it, but if you are not honest in the city of Rome and go around killing people and causing trouble, then don't blame us for being unkind, you should know that the French are not having a good time now, they can't help you, and as far as we know, you are only doing things for Orleans, do you think Charlie's people will help you so easily? ”

"I know what I should do," Cleion replied noncommittally, "but I still have to say that you are getting more and more pathetic now, I heard that a group of you attacked that Joanna, not only did you not get a penny, but even killed a lot of people by the other side, and even you yourself appeared to be left behind by Joanna's people, right?" ”

The masked man looked at Crane silently, his eyes blinked, and he muffled in a voice that exuded suppressed anger, "If you want to be sarcastic, be sarcastic, but if you knew what was going on there, I have never encountered anything like this, and I have never seen anyone so skilled with a saber, I mean, even on the ground, that man's saber is so good." ”

"Looks like you've met someone," Clarion frowned, "I know the man who protected Joanna, and I'm familiar with him. Or maybe it was because of him that I had to leave Sicily, but I didn't expect him to find such a few capable men, and I heard that they used muskets at will at close distance without having to light the twist in advance, how could this be? ”

"Isn't this impossible, but many of my people were suddenly hit by their muskets, and we were so close to them, but we didn't see them order the medicine, otherwise we wouldn't have lost so many people at once."

"But Joanna is said to have been robbed of a lot of things," Clarion's gaze grew stern, "but you tell me you don't actually get any benefit?" ”

"Are you saying I'm stealing that money from someone else?" The masked man asked dissatisfiedly, seeing that Clarion had a look of 'it is true', a sneer came from behind the mask, "Listen, even if I am greedy, I will not do this, because I know how powerful the 'old men' are, I know that they can't let go of those who want to swallow it privately, it's not that no one has done this before, and we all know very well that there are many such people drowned in the Tiber River, so I won't do that kind of stupid thing." ”

"So Joanna is bluffing?" Cryan asked, puzzled, "She didn't actually lose her money?" But why did she do it? ”

"How would I know, but I've seen her, and I don't see that woman can be so smart." The masked man said disapprovingly, "At that time, my people did find a large sum of money and a box full of them, but the Sicilian suddenly appeared with his man. ”

"You mean that Cambrai?" Cyan asked strangely, "He only appeared later, didn't he protect Joanna before?" ”

"Of course not, otherwise my men might not have had time to storm the Marino Palace, his men don't look very good, but my men let them fight so badly," the masked man said as he touched his wrist, he remembered the strength of the saber in the hand of the strange bohemian, and his wrist still ached faintly, "except for the bohemian." ”

The masked man's words gave a curious look on Klean's face.

Since leaving Sicily, he had thought that he would never have anything to do with the young man named Alexander, but he never imagined that he would meet again in Rome.

Palermo's setback was not only a defeat for Clarion, but also a source of anger and pain for him.

He had to abandon his family and flee from the island, and when he saw Alexander in Rome, he was surprised to find that the young man who had put him in such a situation had become the lord of Naples.

It's just that now, in addition to hatred in his heart, he has new doubts.

If the money Joanna claims to have lost is true, if it didn't fall into the hands of the person in front of her, then in whose hands?

Crion pondered in his heart, and then he said to the Masked Man, "Go back and tell the 'old men' that I will follow the rules that St. Guphra set when he founded our ancient guild, but I also need their help," Krion said, turning his head to look at the two closed stone tomb doors in the crypt that were half-sunk on the ground behind the tombstone, "If I'm not mistaken, maybe you didn't succeed, we can continue to finish it." ”