In a small lookout room in Fort Torre, Duke Donbavi sat in a wheelchair and looked through the wide window of the lookout room at the city of Bukhalanse below.

The observation room is located very high, and in order to have a better view, the people who built this room deliberately built the whole observation room to protrude outward, and the semicircular wall is a row of wide windows, so that you can see as much as possible.

However, it is precisely because of this observation room that when you look out from this observation room, you always feel as if you are standing on the edge of a cliff in the air, and even if you think that there is a steep cliff under the plank that you have stepped on, you will often immediately be terrified and dare not move.

The Duke of Downbawi had been in this lookout room for a long time, and the wind blowing in through the empty window made the corners of his mouth blue, but he stubbornly refused to leave, and even drove out the servants around him, leaving him alone.

The city of Buharanse below is so beautiful that it is the pride of the Duke of Downbawi, whose family has ruled here for four generations, except for the earliest Duke of Downbawi, who has been a little longer, and his short-lived father and uncle have ruled here for as long as he combined.

Pamonid Dombawi is almost 70 years old, and he has been Duke of Buharanse for almost 30 years, which is his best time, not only in the Castilian court, but also the largest feudal lord in the south of the kingdom, even today, when Queen Isabella has clearly tried to take power from the feudal lords, he is still the best of these lords.

He owned large farms and vineyards, possessed about the most fertile land in the kingdom, and had a wealthy chamber of commerce engaged in overseas trade, which was rich enough to make any European nobleman jealous, and as for power, although he had not been to Vallador for a long time, his influence was still so great that most nobles wanted to get advice from him before making decisions.

In Buharanse, he is the master and destiny, and even he is the emperor, and no one can go against his will, which is clear to anyone.

He can choose benevolent rule and brutal exploitation, or he can decide whether happiness or calamity can befall any family, and his name is pronounced every day when the people pray for Bukharanse, because they do not pray for the peace of the Duke when they pray for the royal family when they pray for the blessing of the royal family, and even his name is only after the queen and her husband and the rest of the royal family.

All of this was enough to make him feel honored, and enough to satisfy him with nothing extravagant, and Paimonid Dombawi did exactly that.

He hopes to spend his old age in peace, because he has experienced too many things in the early years, when he is old, he hopes to live a peaceful life, maybe it will not take a few years for his limit to come, if he is lucky, he will go to see the emperor in his sleep, if he is unlucky, he may suffer some sins before he dies, but this is nothing compared to the blessings of this life.

Don Bavi felt that he was really open-minded, he had let his eldest son take over the affairs of the territory, he had not left Fort Torre for a long time in recent years, and even he had thought of a way out for his bastards, he felt that he could not treat them badly, so except for one of whom he had arranged to be the abbot of the monastery, and the other two were arranged by him to work in the chambers of commerce in Malaga and Ceuta, so that their future life was also guaranteed.

Don Bawi had everything ready, and then he was ready to enjoy the good times of the last years of his footsteps, and then wait for the emperor's call with satisfaction and no regrets.

But this beautiful dream was suddenly ruined, and the one who ruined his dream was the Isabella who risked his life to support him.

When Isabella and Ferdinand got married, Don Bavi was keenly aware that the couple might make some moves in the future, he knew that Ferdinand was a very cunning person, and Isabella was extremely strong-willed, so the result of the union of the two would definitely lead to a great increase in the power of the royal family.

However, Donbawi still chose to support Isabella at that time, because his territory was located in the south of Castile, and the Moors at that time were close to his territory in Granada, the last country in the Iberian Peninsula, in order to counter the increasingly unfavorable situation, Granada at that time launched a fierce counteroffensive against Andalusia in the hope of establishing as much buffer zone as possible near his own country before the final invasion.

At this time, the Granada monarch Boabdil sent an army that posed a threat to many southern regions, including the city of Buhalanse, and it was known that Enrique had little interest in invading Granada and expelling the infidels.

For Dombawi, Granada was a bigger threat than the future king might have to take over the power of the nobility, which was a distant and unfounded matter, but the threat of the Moorish madness for survival was real.

It is because of these that Tang Bawi made the most risky and rewarding choice of his life at a critical moment.

His choice was eventually rewarded, as Enrique was forced to abolish Juana's succession to the throne and then Isabe**, and the queen showed enough gratitude to Don Bawi for his support at a critical moment.

Everything would have had a perfect outcome, and Don Bawi was ready to spend his old age in peace, but Isabella had done it to him, or to all the feudal lords, at this time.

When Isabella first preached the miracles, the people did not know what the queen really wanted, and many were purely supportive of religious fanaticism, while others were equally happy to see the next kingdom on earth appear in Castile for one purpose or another.

At that time, many people spared no effort to express their strong support for the queen's promotion of the second kingdom, and the lords enthusiastically asked their subordinates to collect among the people about the various miracles that might appear, and then sorted them out and sent them to Valladode, and although many of the chaotic auspicious rays that poured out from all over Castile, whether true or not, sounded incredible and even absurd, the nobles still enthusiastically reported the "miracles" in their respective territories.

Even Tang Bawei was just a little bored with the queen's fanfare at first, and he felt that Isabella had probably lived a peaceful life for too long, and as she got older, she began to think about the reputation she might leave behind her.

It is clear that the queen is not satisfied with the prestige of the achievements of secular society, so she encourages the search for auspiciousness, in order to dress herself up as a pious monarch who will restore the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Originally, this seemed like nothing, and Tang Bawei didn't think there was anything wrong with it, but suddenly, everything changed!

Many of the miracles that have been reported have inexplicably become hereticals, and the men and women who had previously been envied by the people who claimed to have received the Emperor's revelation became demons and witches.

The men were sent to churches for interrogation, where priests and priests brutally tortured them to extract confessions.

When a place begins to use a desperate way of judging whether a person is a heretic or not, Pandora's box opens.

They tied the poor people to the stake and lit a raging fire, and then claimed that if the crimes they charged were not established, then these people could take refuge from the emperor with sincere prayers and be saved by a miracle.

The result speaks for itself, and many people are burned alive in this ridiculous ruling.

And after their deaths, they were destroyed as heretics.

Many more have been subjected to the problem, and countless people have had to sell their property to find ways to clear themselves or their families in order to escape prison or even more terrible punishment.

The clergy brazenly accused someone of heresy, and at the same time encouraged the populace to snitch.

For whistleblowers, the Church promises rewards and opportunities for atonement.

This has led to more and more people seeing opportunities, and many are trying to make a fortune or get an exoneration in this way.

Others use whistleblowing as a means of revenge.

And the church turned a deaf ear to this motive, and they were more concerned with catching heretics and witches.

In many places, the clergy simply deprived the local nobles and judges of the right to try the prisoners, and they directly instructed the cathars under their command to arrest and imprison those they accused of heretics, and then they used some ridiculous means to determine whether they were heretics or witches.

And once so designated, it is almost destined to be difficult to escape from a terrible fate, and often what awaits the defendant is a terrible punishment of all kinds.

At first, the arrests were just ordinary city townspeople and peasants, but gradually some of the lower nobles were also implicated, and the clergy did not care about the methods of these minor nobles, and even more cruelly, which finally shook the Castilian nobles, who tried to stop the fire that had already burned them, but soon they realized that it was too late.

Castile was full of priests and cathars who caught heretics and burned witches, and the encouragement and encouragement of the Church made them even more unscrupulous. So much so that in some places the nobles found themselves gradually losing control of the people in their domains.

Then came the news that Isabella's personal confessor, Father Thomas Tangomada, had suggested to the queen the establishment of a ecclesiastical tribunal.

Tang Bawi sensed the crisis from these signs.

The frequent interference and even infiltration of the land of the feudal lords in the name of punishing heresy is obviously a dangerous signal, which not only offends the dignity of the nobles, but more seriously, as such things continue to appear, the power of the nobles is being unconsciously eroded and replaced.

In many places, signs of this are already evident, and the Church has completely controlled the process of arresting the suspected, to detention, and finally to the execution of sentences, and the aristocracy has become a symbol of dispensability in the courts.

And in the name of punishing heresy, no nobleman dared to take the risk of openly speaking out and denouncing such acts.

The clergy became more and more bold and presumptuous, and even some of the minor nobles were not spared from being brought before the court to be offended by them from questioning to trial.

Dombawi sensed something unusual, and when he heard that Thomas Tangomada had proposed the idea of a church court, and Isabella readily agreed to it, he finally understood where it all came from.

First, they hyped up the discovery of miracles, and then when all parts of the country responded to the reports of miracles, they suddenly turned around and announced that these anomalies were heretics and witches' conspiracy, and then quickly used the churches around the country to crack down, and at the same time took the opportunity to infiltrate the territories of the nobles, and used the churches and the people to directly seize the judicial power in those places.

Later, when the time came, he simply announced the establishment of a church court, completely hollowing out the nobility everywhere.

It is clear that Isabella is using the seemingly harmless god-making movement to secretly pursue a plan to eradicate dissidents and weaken the power of the nobility.

Tang Bawi felt more dread than ever.

Before, because those trials were only for ordinary civilians, no one paid much attention to them, let alone aroused the vigilance of the nobles, but when the nobles finally realized that things were starting to develop in a direction they did not expect, the situation had already changed beyond his imagination.

Thomas Tongomada would openly propose the establishment of a church court because the situation had turned in Isabella's favor, a surprise attack on the nobility using the church and the populace, and it was clear that Isabella had won the war.

The cold wind blew in through the lookout windows around him, but this cold could not be compared to the chill in Tang Bawei's heart.

Isabella's old spicy makes Don Bawi creepy.

He could not have imagined that the princess, who had seemed to him to be a young girl, had become a dangerous huntress.

Behind her seemingly fanatical pursuit of faith in the royal palace of Valladod lies an unknown intention.

What is even more terrifying is that even if he has understood Isabella's intentions, there is nothing he can do, because Isabella occupies the name of righteousness in preaching the doctrine of Christ.

This creates a favorable situation in which no one can compete with her head-on.

Could it be that Isabella was allowed to eat away step by step in the future, and in the end it completely became that woman's meal?

Tang Bawei was unwilling to hold the leather handrail of the wheelchair, although he was thin but still very strong fingers squeezed the handrail, but in the end he had to let go helplessly.

Tang Bawi moved his body, which was somewhat numb from the cold wind, and he tightened the buckskin blanket that wrapped his legs, then picked up the wine glass that was set aside and took a sip of the spirits.

First the coldness, then the burning sensation in his throat lifted Tang Bawi's spirits, and he inhaled hard, then exhaled vigorously, as if to expel the stuffy breath in his chest with him.

"Elizabeth Irastamara," Dombawi muttered to himself, for whom the name was inextricably linked to his fate, and it seemed that fate was predestined, and whatever happened in the future, his relationship with the name was inseparable.

There was a soft knock on the door from behind him, and an attendant walked in and reported to Tang Bawi: "Sir, that Pastor Gado has just been burned at the stake in the city, he declared his half-brother Mandosa a heretic, and then burned him on the spot, as well as Mandosa's family, they were all declared burned at the stake for heresy, and then Pastor Gado announced that all the property of the Mandosa family would be confiscated and returned to the church. ”

"This bastard," Don Bawi slammed his chair down, "he's revenge, when Mandoza forced him to study in the convent, he didn't expect this to happen one day. ”

"Sir, the people in the city are now saying that Pastor Gado will become a bishop in the future, or even an archbishop." "It is said that he openly said in front of many people that he would punish all heretics, even the nobles. ”

"What does he want to do, think of himself as Bukhalanser's ** officer," Tang Bawi was furious, and seeing that his entourage seemed to have something to say, the duke said angrily, "Is there anything else, say it, I can't think of anything worse than this." ”

"That's the case," said the attendant, licking his lips and cautiously, "some say that the Duke of Rometesia was nearby when he saw Pastor Gado being burned at the stake, and he saw the whole trial. ”

The attendant's words made Tang Bawei stunned for a moment, and then fell into deep thought.

Then he waved his hand for his attendant to push him out of the observation room, and in the corridors of the castle, with the monotonous sound of the wooden wheels of wheelchairs, Tang Bawi's face flickered from time to time.

Finally, an imperceptible smile appeared on his wrinkled face.

He let his retinue push him in the direction of the hall, and when he reached the center of the hall, where many weapons and armor stood, he let his retinue push him around the hall slowly.

Looking up at the flags left by the ancestors of the Tang Bawei family hanging from the high beams, Tang Bawei let out a sigh.

"Since my grandfather, the Dombawi family has ruled Buhalanse for less than a hundred years," Dombawi said slowly, "but my family has been in the service of the monarch since the time of Sancho Garcia, Count of Castile, and that was centuries ago, so my family is the oldest nobleman in Castile like any family." ”

Tang Bawi's old voice echoed in the hall as if he were talking to himself or to someone, while the attendant behind him walked slowly with his wheelchair bowed and pleasing his eyes, as if he had not heard what his master was saying at all.

"A hundred years may be too long for a person, but it is still too short for a family, so I swear here in the name of the Duke of Bukhalanser that Paimonid Donbawi will be the fourth lord of Bukharanse, but by no means the last lord, and the glory of the Donbawi family has just begun."

Listening to his master's oath in an unquestionable tone, the entourage behind him trembled inexplicably, and his feet were a little chaotic.