Carnival passed, and at dawn on Ash Wednesday, it began to rain in Brest.

"It's strange that such a rainstorm should not have happened before Pentecost." One of the grooms complained that he lit a fire and baked the grass so that the horses of the guests would not be left with rotting fodder, but the work was tiring and choking.

"Who knows, they all say that it rains out of time, and it's all because the witch is crying." An idle guard chimed in.

"Don't you have to guard the drawbridge?" The groom asked, giving the guard a piece of dried meat.

"Someone," the guard readily accepted, "and in weather like this, on the first day of Lent, who will come?" ”

But it was so coincidental that as soon as the words fell, someone shouted loudly on the other side of the drawbridge, and the guards immediately ran over, and the rain was so heavy that even if the guards wore hats (who called it this era, rain is also regarded as a gift from God, and the umbrella is an invention that would be accused by the church of not being pious enough) could hardly open their eyes, and they could not see the appearance of the person who came, but the other party immediately took out a letter from the personal officer of the Duchess of Brittany, Madame Kindness, with the Duchess's coat of arms and fire paint on it.

The letter was quickly delivered, and Giulio read it, got up from his chair at once, knocked on Caesar's door, and told him that he must go at once.

"What's going on?" Caesar asked.

"There is something wrong with the people who have received the blessing from Purugverin, and more than twenty people have developed high fevers and herpes, and Madame Kindness and her maid have fallen ill, and I must go back at once to see them." Giulio said hurriedly.

Caesar's heart thumped.

He didn't know what was wrong, and when he saw that the thin back was about to disappear at the end of the hallway, he shouted, "Julio." ”

"Why," asked Giulio good-naturedly, though he was already in a hurry, "my brother." ”

"Nothing," Caesar stood there, his face pale, "May God bless you...... My brother. ”

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Giulio recognized him as one of Madame Kindness's retinue.

Giulio was accompanied by two of the castle's retinues, and he glanced behind him before getting on his horse: "What about Armand?" "Armand is a man of Cardinal Picromini, and although he is a priest, his martial arts are definitely not inferior to that of a knight.

"Armand drank too much." One of the servants said, exchanging glances with his companions, who were both French.

The matter was urgent, Giulio didn't have time to think about it, he flew on his horse and ran out of the suspension bridge, and the rain suddenly wrapped him in the whole thing, galloping when the light was not bright enough, and the rainstorm was even more dangerous, but Giulio was not worried about anything else, but worried that those people were not because of planting cowpox, but were infected with other diseases, which was also helpless. There were too many people in the town, and he had done his best, but in this era, there was no running water and heaters, and the weather was cold and the clothes were thin, so it was impossible to provide a healthy environment for these poor people like the later generations, and they liked to huddle together, let fleas and rats crawl on them, and it was normal for dozens of people to use the same bowl and cup, and they had no other utensils except for one bowl and one cup.

He had screened several people for dysentery, tuberculosis and syphilis, but he couldn't guarantee that there were any incubation patients in the population.

They galloped along the path, and it was strange that the sky was as red as hell at this time, and the castle of Brest was less than 6 franca miles from the monastery of St. Matthew, which was about 25 kilometers from the ready-made system, and they drove all good horses, and they could gallop fifty miles in an hour, so that they could reach Proudverin before dawn.

When leaving the main road in front of the castle of Brest and turning into the path that led to Prugverin, which was surrounded by dense forests, Giulio slowed down his horse's speed, such a muddy path, the horse easily stumbled, and it would be terrible to break the horse's hooves and human necks, but the attendant of the Kind Lady suddenly became agitated, and he cried out loudly, "We must hurry, Madame is still waiting for us!" As soon as he approached the horses, Giulio was forced to lean towards the steep slope on one side of the path, which was not of a surprising height, but as soon as he fell, the consequences could be imagined.

And the two men behind them followed closely.

What they did not expect was that the object of their murder, without warning, raised his hand and drew his short sword, and by the opportunity of the two horses side by side, and the knight almost side by side, the sword stabbed into the throat of the lady's attendant, and then the noble clergyman cut the reins of the deceased's horse with a twist of his wrist, and while kicking the spur hard, he struck the deceased horse's neck hard, causing the horse to fall down with a wail. And his horse, already stimulated by the spurs, galloped out along the empty road.

Two men named Hu Servant, who were actually assassins, shouted, they were only two horses away from Giulio, but between them, there was the fallen dead and the dead man's horse, they lifted their horses and tried to cross, one succeeded, and the other did not, the successful one did not look at his companion and chased after him, and the one who fell broke his thigh, and his screams pierced the rain curtain.

Because the town of Prugverin has always been so deserted, that the trail is rarely tended, the path is overgrown with grass, and the branches weave into a sparse net over the path, Giulio bows his head, the branches take away his wide-brimmed hat, and a few strands of black hair are snatched, the rain makes his hands and feet cold, the adrenaline from the crisis makes his body hot, and his mind has never been so clear—is it because of Borgia? Or Medici? By this time he had no time to tell.

The man who set this trap did not know that Giulio may not know a retinue who had only met a few times, but he knew that Mrs. Kindness, a woman with the means and ambitions of a man, should not shout and recklessly like a brainless fool in any situation; The only possibility is that he was nervous, he was panicking, he was afraid that Giulio would find out about their plot, so as soon as something was abnormal, he lost his mind and acted against common sense.

Just as he was about to rush out of the trail, he lost the shade of the branches, and there was a white light in front of him, and in the midst of this light, several extraordinarily bright spots startled Giulio, and he did not hesitate to make a judgment, and fell off the horse's back, his shoulder hitting the muddy ground, splashing dirty water obscuring his vision, and he rolled and fled from under the hooves of his pursuers—Giulio was right, though the pursuers tried their best to restrain or twist the horses, But he was unfortunate enough to collide with Julio's horse with the silver-plated iron wires, which sliced through the muscles and veins of both humans and horses at once, with the help of the horse's speed. The hot blood rose to the sky and cooled in the torrential rain, diluting it with the rain, but when they both fell to the ground together, the sweet smell of the water of life poured into Julio's nostrils.

Julio could barely breathe, the two guards and grooms of the castle knew each other, that is, they were real servants, and to be able to become servants in Brest Castle, they would not be ordinary civilians, and they were just dispensable spare parts in this assassination, who could have so much power? And why should he target himself? It is not too much to say that Giulio did not think that he had much value in assassination, and although the Medici family had survived the previous turmoil, it would be at least twenty or thirty years before the next rise; As for his position in Rome, although he was a disciple of Cardinal Picromini, there was a genuine Cardinal Medici there; It would not be surprising if Caesar was by his side, as the Pope's illegitimate son, a Borgia, he might have been assassinated more times than he had breakfast, and Giulio was almost always accustomed to suffering from the fish in the pond around him, but now Caesar was still far away in Brest Castle.

But there wasn't much time left for him to think, and the silhouette of Prugverin could already be seen from here, and the real Assassins had gathered around him.

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Madame Kindness woke up very early, as if something was constantly urging her, and at her insistence, it was not yet dawning, and her maids dressed her up, and as a matter of habit, she went into the copying room, and the monks hurried candles for her, and lit the fire, and Madame Kindness sat down, and played with the quill on the table in a bored and lazy manner, and its owner had left in such a hurry that he had forgotten it, and had not even put it away properly.

After a while, even she herself thought it ridiculous, so she gave her maid some instructions, and left the copying room, and came into the prayer room, and before she could kneel, her maid came in, hesitating not to interrupt her: "Alas, my dear friend, what is the matter with your unruly appearance? ”

Her maid hesitated, "for it does not seem to be a matter of great importance," and she said, "I am prepared to let Zad do what you have commanded me." ”

"And then?"

"Zadeh's companion says he has been leaving Proudverin since noon yesterday." The maid paused and added: "But yesterday was a carnival, maybe he went to ......"

Before she could finish her sentence, Mrs. Kindness stood up and said, "Go check my box." ”

Author's words - look at the interaction, an adult asked, is there Germany at this time? Yes, the Kingdom of Germany, including the Duchy of Saxony, the Duchy of Bavaria (the birthplace of Princess Sissi) and many other principalities, I have a map here, which is Germany and Italy in the 12th century, but for the sake of understanding, I wrote it directly as Germany, just as France was written directly as France.

But if there is any problem, please point it out to adults, after all, that era is really messy. Just like the Netherlands before, in short, I am really grateful to these attentive adults.

There have been adults who have asked if the word curl is used incorrectly, no, curl (curl) (1). Yang Mo's "Flowers Fly Everywhere in Spring City": "His thin body is curled up in a tattered sack. Song Shaoming's poem "Flowing Village": "Three dogs, the sun is red like fire, on the Gobi Desert, the red willow leaves are curled. ”

But thank you.

Finally, there is a small problem, Anna is not a duchess, she is a veritable duchess, the master of Brittany.