"However, the pilgrims' team does not have any military experience, so I think it would be enough to wait for the Celestial Commander to send a large contingent or ask the Greek Emperor to send an army of four or five thousand men, and we will be responsible for cooperating." Walter also disagrees with being too hasty and reckless.

But the two lords, who had just tasted the great sweetness, forced Walter to bow down to the cross enshrined in the tent, and made him swear to the Lord that he would not hesitate or waver on the pilgrimage.

In the end, the helpless Walter could only compromise.

The rain was getting heavier and heavier outside, and Anna lay on the bed in the dormitory, not quiet, and after asking the older maid to bring her a cup of warm water to drink, she stood up, paced to the desk by the lamplight, listened to the darkness of the outside world, and held the reed pen in front of her diary, and was speechless.

Suddenly, a handmaiden pointed to the Faros sundial outside the window and cried, "There is a fire over there!" ”

"Was it a thunderbolt?" The old maid leaned in, and then Anna got up, and stood at the window, and watched the golden and red fires of the tall sundial in the darkness, piercing and tearing at the inky sky, like a red comet swinging there, and the court was full of the noise and running of men. The eldest princess, who was shocked and uneasy, sat back down, and wrote on the paper,

"In the sixteenth year of the reign of the Venerable Holy Apostle Roman Emperor Alexios, in the sixteenth year of the reign of the Venerable Holy Apostle Roman Emperor Alexios, on the third day of the last week of the ninth month (Sunday was the first day in Byzantium, and the third day was actually Tuesday), the palace was flooded with rain and water. The sundial was red and thundering, restless day and night. ”

After writing these words. Anna knew in her heart what it was like to be "rainy" and "restless day and night": Marlena and her brother John. Taken hostage by her mother and uncle, she will go with her mother to the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom tomorrow, and ask all her subjects, senators, and patriarchs to recognize her as a truly qualified heir to the crown prince. But whether this matter succeeds or fails, how will she face her father in the future? The younger brother's previous words of "father will be sad" were like thunder outside the window, constantly shaking her eardrums and tearing at her little heart.

"Father, father," Anna murmured in distress. He knelt down on the table, then lifted the barrel of his pen again, and at the bottom of the diary, wrote the famous words of the Bible, "My father is greater than me." ”

But she remembered her mother's words, "Don't lose to a man." Father Alexios does love him very much, but in the eyes of his father, his daughter will always be just a daughter after all, and he loves her when she is not married. Honoring her husband after her marriage and gaining peace for the empire is the limit of being a woman - and Alexios could not escape this idea. Moreover, the Father's dear is not only her, but also the abominable woman. And that contemptible brother. The struggle for power in the court is like the Colosseum, no matter how gentle it may be on the outside. But there will always be a river of blood inside, why can't she become the mistress of the empire? And it's not without precedent that I'm twelve years old. He was already able to manage an orphanage of 1,000 people in an orderly manner, and he was familiar with ancient legal codes and manuscripts. understands Xiaochang's various legal allusions, which of her is worse than her vulgar and unliterate brother John, just because the latter has an extra organ under her crotch than her? Or is my father's idea always from the point of view of the surname Komnenos?

It doesn't seem to be to blame that my mother and I are using the power of the Ducasse family.

"At this time, it would be nice if the big barbarian was around. Sure enough, I don't have the face to face my father anymore, sure enough," Anna finally couldn't help but smile bitterly, thinking so.

In the hazy dream, Anna came to the colorful dome cloud again, she looked around in amazement, and sure enough, the strange and beautiful woman in a black robe stood at the entrance of the palace in the distance, "Anna. Komnenos, you will get the crown of the Empire. No one in the world, including your father, can stop you, for the man you love most will put a crown on your noble head with his own hands. ”

"I don't want to be my father's enemy, and the man you're talking about, is it Gawain? Isn't it? Anna anxiously ran over and asked the woman in black.

"Don't deceive yourself, Anna, people's ** is like a snake in the Garden of Eden, it is silent, but it can enter any of your realms, and you can't get rid of it." The woman laughed, and then behind her shoulder, a huge serpent with purple pupils and a fiery letter swirled upwards along the pillars of the court, and burrowed into the lightning and thunderous clouds on it, and soon Anna looked up in horror, only to see the huge black shadow of the serpent, hovering among the flashes and clouds, "She is you, this snake is you, Anna." It may only be able to hide under the leaves of small fruit trees at the earliest, but it will become stronger and stronger, and it will become more and more large, and the first thing for people is its food and nutrients, until it breaks through the cage and soars between the sky. Therefore Anna, it is not something to be afraid and ashamed to crush with your fangs those who dare to stand in your way, and to stand side by side with those who truly believe in love. ”

"Lord, save me." At this time, Anna could only kneel down and muttered prayers.

"Go and receive your crown, but it's not here, it's in a distant land of destiny, and its name is 'The Land of the Seven Ridges.'" With that, in the midst of the thunder and fire, the woman gradually disappeared from Anna's field of vision, as if she had arrived.

"The Land of Seven Ridges, the Land of Seven Ridges" Anna kept saying this, waking up from the bed, at this moment the rain had been collected, and it was said that the flames of the palace sundial had been extinguished, and the maid reported to her that Queen Irene's chariot was waiting for her between the gate of the palace and the arrow path, but Anna, who got up, had fluffy hair, and was still half-open with her eyes, thinking about the proverb of "The Land of Seven Mountains", and then laughed dumbly, "What, the great imperial capital, isn't it just like Rome, the city of seven hills, with seven hills?" I really don't know what kind of ghostly woman is babbling to in her dreams. So Anna was relieved to believe that she would succeed today, that the Patriarch Maastas loved her, and that the subjects of the whole empire loved her, and then she sat down among the great three mirrors, and five skilled maids combed her hair in beautiful braids, and dressed her in a gown embroidered with golden icons, which she must perfect before the Grand Palace and the Cathedral today.

When she sat down on her shoulder, she came to the door of the Brachna Palace, where Caesar's Isurian guard stood upright, and the Varangian guard, who had received orders from the empress and the regent of the court appointed by the emperor himself before his departure, were also escorted, "Set off to the Cathedral of the Holy Age." ”

At this moment, in the beautiful courtyard on the edge of the Bull Square, in the damp and dark basement behind the garden, Peter sat in the sunlight, and then a dark shadow swallowed up his sunlight. (To be continued.) )