Several men with floppy cloth hats and carrying the Leño daggers, which were commonly used in the area, staggered down the street not far from the palace gates, and the guards looked at them for a moment, then ignored them.

Another group of local thugs who were causing trouble everywhere, the guard muttered in his heart, the Aragonese looked down on these locals, for the Aragonese who had just finished the glorious and tragic Reconquista, it was difficult for them to understand the seemingly aspiring and lazy and boring way of life of the Sicilians, especially their tolerant attitude towards the pagans, which made it difficult for the Aragonese to accept even if they knew that both sides were subjects of the same king, But they still can't identify with their own compatriots.

The Sicilians had the same mind, and in their eyes the Aragonese were no different from the pagans in some respects, whether it was the big customs or the small details of life, there were always some traces of the subtle contamination of the Moors due to years of contact with the Moors.

Even if they were more religious than anyone else, even that piety inevitably had traces of paganism, including the Aragonese punishments for prisoners and the cruel methods that the Sicilians considered pagan.

The guards didn't pay any more attention to the men, so they didn't see them disappear quickly around the corner of the street.

Krion looked at the palace and pondered, it had been 1 day since the last time he had infiltrated the palace, and he was waiting for a message from the palace.

Several of the people around him were all under the old man Bushedat, and these people didn't know who Krion was or what he wanted to do, but they knew that the old man seemed to be very taboo about this man, which made several people full of curiosity about Krion.

However, they also know that there are some things that cannot be inquired about, and although this person is a little strange, he seems to be very ordinary, and he does not seem to be a big person.

The old man Bushdat has eyeliner in the palace, but because of his low status, he can't hear much, but Krion went to the palace and heard almost the news, so that as long as the people inside stare at the suspicious tower as Kryan instructed, they should soon find something.

Cleion knew that Alexander's men had infiltrated the city defenses, and although the palace guards were all Aragonese guards, as long as Bochum was the inner force, it was believed that they would soon begin to rescue Mordillo.

Krion had tried the old man several times, but he didn't find out who wanted him to rescue Mordillo, but Kryan didn't care about this anymore, he had his purpose and plan.

As for when those men would do it, Clarion thought it would be two days later, as it was when Flomenza was going to hold a welcome dinner for Gonzalo's arrival.

The banquet to welcome the head of the knights was delayed for several days, mainly because of the waiting for some nobles from Messina and Syracuse.

Flomenza saw the banquet as an opportunity to show the strength of the local nobility in these places, to show the Sicilians the strength of the Aragonese army, and to make the local nobles who were still stubbornly trying to retain their power demonstrate, which was Flomenza's purpose.

As for whether Gonzalo guessed his idea, Flomensa didn't care very much, or from the fact that the palace minister had not been able to get help and any promises from Gonzalo, he had already seen that Gonzalo was obviously not very willing to get involved in those troublesome power struggles, so he thought that he would take the opportunity to borrow the knight's captain's deterrence to increase his bargaining chips, and it would not cause Gonzalo's dissatisfaction.

What Flomensa didn't expect was that Gonzalo actually accepted Camusi's invitation to his home, which somewhat caught Flomenza's attention, but when he heard that the two seemed to be more interested in the Ottomans' war with Venice, Flomenza felt that he might really be a little distracted.

Flomenza doesn't like the Venetians, something that many people have known since he was in charge so long.

Flomenza's dislike for the Venetians was simple: he believed that Venice was an obstacle to Aragon's expansion in the Mediterranean.

Venice's control of trade in the Mediterranean was a nuisance for many Aragonese, especially since their ambiguous relationship with the Ottomans was seen by the Aragonese as a typical duplicitous.

In the early years, the common sense that Aragon had tried to expand its influence in the Mediterranean through Sicily was also destroyed by Venice, which made many Aragonese nobles, including Flomenza, generally have a bad feeling towards the Venetians.

After becoming the governor of Sicily, Flomenza did not abandon this antipathy, and even thought that God had given him a good opportunity to seize territory in the Mediterranean for the king, even if the threat of the Ottomans came, but in his opinion, it might be a good opportunity to force the Venetians to give in to Aragon.

Therefore, he has always been cold to the Venetian envoys, in order to take the opportunity to finally accept the harsh conditions he had prepared, because he knew that as the governor of Sicily, he had a natural right to advise the king in Venetian affairs, so Florencea believed that the Venetians would eventually compromise with him.

As far as he knew, the envoy had apparently not given up his efforts during this time, and was trying to mediate everywhere in the hope of getting help, but Flomenza was not worried that someone would stand up against him, and there was no one in Sicily who could oppose him now.

Two days passed quickly, and the nobles from elsewhere had arrived, the last time they had come to Palermo was when Flomenza had been ordered to take over Sicily, and since then he had almost mastered most of Sicily, except for some local nobles who were entrenched in remote places, and even the churches and nobles of Messina and Syracuse had to bow to the governor.

And now the arrival of the Aragonese army has made the Sicilian nobles realize that perhaps they will have a better time in the future.

Gonzalo was very happy to be at the banquet, even if he knew that Flomenza had ulterior motives, but he didn't really care, it was naturally good for him to have sumptuous food and good wine, not to mention that there were so many beautiful women, which made Gonzalo feel that he might still be very young.

There were many people who accepted the invitation, which was much larger than the welcome banquet prepared by Flomenza when the Aragonese army first arrived, and the presence of almost all the Sicilian nobles made the palace very lively.

Strictly speaking, Florenceza resembled King Ferdinand, or that he was deliberately imitating Ferdinand.

Ferdinand was not a pleasure-seeking monarch, and in contrast to kings who focused on extravagant pleasures, Ferdinand was pious, resolute, and self-disciplined.

And although he did not have strict requirements for the people around him to abide by those rules as himself, he always preferred people with similar habits, so that those cronies around him naturally imitated the habits of the king, and over time they also developed the style of this generation of the Aragon court quite simple and not exaggerated.

And Flomensa, as one of Ferdinand's most trusted cronies, even though he has become a "vice-king" figure in Sicily, his habits for many years still make him strictly abide by the habits of the court.

In this respect, he is more commendable than any of his predecessors before him.

It was only that Flomenza could maintain this style of observance of the rules and regulations, but it could not stop the extravagance of the local nobles, who may have been afraid of the cruel and bloody governor, but not to the point where he had to look at his face even to enjoy a life of luxury.

Above all, the Church's performance in Sicily became their greatest reliance, and the depravity of the bishops and the shameless private lives of the clergy made the nobles right, all of which in turn came from the Vatican.

And the anecdote that the Pope himself, when he was still an archbishop in Valencia, even once led a group of noble ladies to hold a happy assembly behind closed doors became a reason for them to have nothing to fear.

"So I hate these degenerate Sicilians, they have no sense of honor at all, just like their ancestors, who were conquered by the Romans, the Moors, and the Normans, and us, but they are all submissive, and I have no doubt that if the Ottomans had conquered them, they would have been like a flock of lambs."

Flomenza made no secret of his dislike for the Sicilians, and while he responded with haughty eyes to the nobles who bowed in their direction from afar, he lowered his voice and spoke to Gonzalo, who was standing aside, what he thought of the Sicilians.

"Speaking of the Ottomans, Camus had told me something interesting," said Gonzalo, as if by accident, "that we should help the Venetians, because if they are defeated by the Ottomans, Sicily will be the next target of the Ottomans." ”

"Oh, that old fellow, he must have been bribed by the Venetians, don't think I don't know that the Venetians approached him through that tailor, and I still wonder how a man like him could live so long, shouldn't God have taken his soul away a long time ago, and to put it mildly, I think it's much better to let him go to heaven after death than to stay on earth."

Gonzalo looked at Flomenza interestingly, he admired Camusa a little now, after all, there are not many people in Sicily who can make Flomenza hate so much at this time, but there is nothing he can do.

"No, Captain, I would not agree to support the Venetians, I think the only way they can atone for the bad things they have done in the past is to prove by sacrifice that they still believe in God and not in money, so what they should do is not to ask for help but to fight a real war with the Ottomans, at least they have not seen them in the past when they did business with the infidels as they do now."

Flomenza raised his chin slightly as he spoke, motioning for Gonzalo to speak to the Venetian envoy who was talking to a group of people not far away.

"The only thing I'm surprised is that he didn't visit you, I thought he would be the first to ask you for support."

Gonzalo didn't care about Flomenza's seemingly provocative words, his eyes lingered on the richly dressed women, who were obviously also interested in the legendary general, and for a while the two of them would pass by with self-confident women from time to time, and then cast a look full of enthusiasm at the general.

"Looks like I should be out of company for a while."

Flomensa quickly noticed Gonzalo's absent-minded appearance, and he shrugged his shoulders helplessly and was about to leave, but Gonzalo suddenly stopped him: "Governor, what do you think of the declaration of war by the Neapolitans?" ”

Hearing Gonzalo ask this, Flomenza's expression became slightly serious, and his eyes swept over the nobles, and then fell on Bochum, who was standing not far from the gate.

"We are more worried that the French may be doing something out of this, and it is said that the French have suddenly started to requisition boats, but what are they going to do with so many boats if they don't want to cross the sea?"

"Neapolitans?"

"Yes, I suspect that they have negotiated terms with the Neapolitans, knowing that once our army joins the coalition against France, it will be a very bad situation for Louis XII, so I would not be surprised at all if I were told that the French and Naples were at peace at this time."

"So that's why you're against us supporting the Venetians?"

"Yes, we don't have enough troops to help the Venetians, and what the king has asked us to do is we have to take Naples," Flormenza lowered his voice, "but none of us thought that the Neapolitans would flee without even the slightest resistance, and that they would declare war on us, so that we would have no legal reason to enter Naples, which is really bad." ”

Gonzalo nodded silently, and although he was a little disdainful of the governor's act of currying favor with Ferdinand, he was very approving of Flomenza's opinion.

The Aragonese army did lose a reasonable reason to enter Naples.

It turned out that in Ferdinand's plan, the royal family of Naples, which was in danger of annihilation, would definitely ask for assistance from the brotherly kingdom as before, so that they could logically march into Naples, and then they could find an excuse to depose the king and declare the annexation of Naples.

But no one expected that Modillo would happen, let alone that the fleeing Neapolitan royal family would have such courage to declare war on Sicily.

As if sensing Gonzalo's eyes, Flomenza moved his neck a little unnaturally, he could guess that Gonzalo should be thinking that it was precisely because of his arrest of Mordillo that this kind of incident would be caused.

But Flomenza did not believe that his decision was wrong, and in his opinion, it was perhaps more important to use Modillo as an opportunity to eliminate the hostile forces in Castile than to lose the opportunity to legally annex Naples.

It's just that this reason, of course, can't be said to Gonzalo.

Gonzalo, on the other hand, was more interested in the Neapolitan army.

When he heard that Alexander's army was in Naples, Gonzalo suddenly felt the urge to immediately lead his troops across the sea and land, and he was eager to test the results of his transformation and training of the army in the past few years in a head-to-head confrontation with Alexander, and the only way to prove it was to engage the enemy on the battlefield.

"Will the army of Naples invade directly, I mean, if they really negotiate terms with the French?" Gonzalo was not very enthusiastic about court tricks, so he had to ask Flomenza for advice on this matter.

"Honorable Knight, if you hadn't come to Sicily with your army, perhaps I would have been thinking about how to deal with such a formidable enemy, but now I would have preferred that they would have become stupid."

Listening to Flomenza's flattery, although he knew that he was deliberately currying favor, Gonzalo couldn't help but smile slightly.

There was a small commotion in the direction of the door, and then people saw an attendant hurrying in.

Everyone's eyes couldn't help but look at the squire, and as he ran directly to the governor without caring about anything, the voice in the hall couldn't help but lower.

"Your Excellency!" The attendant ran to the governor and saluted in a hurry before he had time to catch his breath, and then he immediately said in a hurry: "The envoy sent by the Vatican has arrived!" ”

Flomensa's expression couldn't help but froze, listening to the unexpected whispers of exclamation around him, he whispered to his attendants, "Special envoy, who is it that the Vatican sent?" ”

"His Holiness the Metropolitan of Tuscany and Romagna." The attendant said anxiously, "The Metropolitan Lord's procession is about to enter the palace. ”

There was another exclamation, and at the same time several bishops of Sicily had already come over under the leadership of the archbishop.

"Why did an envoy come suddenly?" The archbishop looked at Flomenza with a heavy expression and several bishops, "And there is no news at all beforehand. ”

"I'd love to know what was going on, but unfortunately I don't know what was going on as well as you," Fromenza's attitude towards the archbishop is clear, since the death of Bishop Alfonso of Palermo, the relationship between the Sicilian Church and the Vatican has become delicate, and at this time a special envoy of the Metropolitan suddenly came, which could not but give rise to all kinds of thoughts.

"I think we'd better wait to welcome this Vatican guest, perhaps he brought the Pope's order to us." Flomenza proposed to the archbishop, and at the same time, several figures had already appeared at the gates of the palace.

Looking at the Metropolitan who walked in front, dressed in a vestment and wearing a small red felt hat, the bishops of Sicily and Florencea raised their hands and crossed each other.

Just as Flomenza was about to speak, Gonzalo, who was standing on the side, suddenly spoke very rudely: "What an accident, it's you." ”

Everyone's eyes were drawn to Gonzalo for a moment, and then to the man who was following the metro.

As the man lifted his hat, a whisper of surprise and surprise rang out in the hall.

"I'm honored too, Honorable Knights, but trust me, it's not an accident."

Alexander smiled at Gonzalo.