UnnamedEpisode 18 of Count Cesare's Desire

Cesare de Como is an Italian name. On the family register, he was the bastard son of King Leo III and the son of Count Como, and he was always dissatisfied with his life. His glory was always right in front of him, but just as he was about to enter his hands, he was taken by someone lesser than him. The title of prince in the hands of Alfonso, a milk-scented boy, was a prime example. He sat on a balcony on the right side of Daeseongh wang dang's central corridor, but he was still unsatisfied. This is not the balcony seat at the top, where the "true royal family" gathers to watch the grand mass, but rather the balcony seat installed one floor below it. From the balcony seat on the top right, the king always watched the grand mass with the queen and their cute puppy-like son, with whom they didn't get along. Despite the fact that the atmosphere on the balcony seats where the King and his wife were gathered was always cold, Leo III never stepped onto the lower balcony seats full of laughter and jokes. Cesare and the Countess of Rubina could only occupy Leo III in the inner chambers, never in public. Because of his pride, he could never look up from his balcony seat in the upper right corner. It was terrifying to think that while Cesare was looking up from below, Alfonso, who had done nothing with his own hands, was meeting the gaze from above. Cesare despised kneeling and peering up from below. Downstairs, in the Great Hall, for distraction, the beautiful Isabella, the Cardinal's daughter, strutted across the central gangway. I thought it was impolite to judge the act, but the sight of a beautiful 17-year-old girl acting like a fairy in excitement was worth seeing. Isabella possessed the ability to draw the attention of the crowd. She was spectacular when viewed from above. Following her lead, the men's gazes were drawn to the central corridor one by one.

'Well, this isn't even a wheelhouse,' says the captain.

Cesare laughed inwardly at the downstairs merchants who were possessed by women and couldn't control their heads. He thought he was unique. The king's eldest son, descended from royal lineage. It was only natural for him to have the entire world because of his superior lineage. And the best mate for me, the best male, would be Isabella de Mare, San Carlo's most admired female. He desired Isabella to possess it. A fist-sized ruby brought by a merchant from the Republic of Porto last month, a Moorish slave with unusually dark skin, and a cannon, a new item from the Duchy of Valois, were all in the same context as what he desired. Rather than being interested in the object itself, he desired that the admiration of those around him be directed towards Cesare, who possessed the object.

- 'As expected, Count Cesare, don't you own all the best course horses?'

- 'It's just a steed, and all the beauties of San Carlo Castle are his slaves.'

- "To have Isabella de Mare!" Count Cesare is, as expected, incredible.'

The corner of his mouth naturally raised as he imagined that the crowd swarming around him making illogical jokes would lift him up. Downstairs, a golden girl smiled sweetly at him. A shy lady showing such bold interest in him was a sign that a gentleman had to reciprocate. He returned her flirtation with a nod of his head.

'Sooner or later, I'll have to ask Cardinal de Mare about his intentions regarding the wedding. I'll give it a shot when I see his father next month.'

Cesare caught the eye of a dark-haired girl who was following Isabella while staring at her greedily. The dark-haired girl's gloomy and stern expression stood out awkwardly between Isabella and Lucrezia. He inquired of her mother, Countess Rubina, as to who was behind her.

"What about that dark girl in Cardinal De Mare's house, Mother?"

Countess Rubina replied while trimming her nails with a long file, without raising her head.

"This is Cardinal de Mare's second child from a previous mistress." She said she already looked good to Queen Marguerite."

"What on earth are you looking at?"

"Don't judge people solely based on their appearance." It's no ordinary bet, seeing as that little thing has already caught the attention of the fussy Queen Marguerite."

"How does a girl spend her cleverness?"

Countess Rubina looked at her son with her thin eyes open.

"Do you think this mother came here just to look pretty?"

"Isn't that so?"

Countess Rubina, a cold-looking and thin-lined beauty who resembled Cesare, frowned at her son, who rebelled against his thick hair.

"You pitiful child."

At that time, the pipe organ of Daeseonghwangdang began to play solemnly. It was the tune that signalled the beginning of the sermon. With the music in the background, a man dressed in coarse burlap and wearing a flat hat of a priest climbed lazily to the main altar. He was an unusually tall man, with one beaky eye in a hollowed-out orbit, and a shapely light in his eyes.

"I think the sermon is about to begin. That person must be the apostle of Aseretto."

Cesare pretended to concentrate on the sermon, despite his innermost desire to deflect his mother's anger. Inside the cathedral, which had been noisy, gradually became quiet as the apostle of Aseretto went up to the altar. The atmosphere was more focused and full of anticipation than usual when waiting for Cardinal de Mare's sermon. In contrast to the sermons of Cardinal de Mare in Latin, the sermons of the Apostle of Acheretto were in the common Etruscan-Aceretto language.

"- He was born as a human being."

His sermon was provocative from the first word.

"He was born as the son of a shepherd in Yesak's barn and laughed, lived and learned as a human until he was commanded by the Holy Spirit at the age of thirty to become the son of the Holy Ghost."

People held their breath and focused on the Apostle of Aseretto.

"Only when the Holy Ghost chose Him to be His Son through the first sacrifice did He, born as a human, become a Son and attain the same divinity as the Holy Ghost."

Upon reaching this point, audience reactions varied dramatically. Some were enthusiastically positive, while others looked uncomfortable.

- 'So, yesak's Gon wasn't the son of the Holy Spirit from birth, but he was originally a human son?'

- 'Isn't that too radical?'

The apostle's sermons in Aseretto elicited very different reactions from the people. The popularity of his sermons among the poor and needy was explosive. The story that even the most humble person can learn, learn, and practise the teachings of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will personally choose him as his son and place him on the highest throne in the thousand-year-old kingdom under the heavens. On the other hand, to the educated class and the ruling class, the sermon of the Apostle of Aseretto was itself unsettling. To the nobles, the Apostle of Aseretto's sermon that 'the least can ascend to the highest' was a grave threat. The vested interests of Seonghwangcheong and its affiliated Seonghwangdang taught the believers as follows.

- 'Noble spirits are born into royalty or nobles and do good deeds, and lowly spirits are born as commoners and make atonement. He has to do a lot of good deeds to be born as a nobleman in his next life, and royalty and nobles are those who have proved themselves to be people with great qualities in the eyes of the Holy Ghost.'

Royalty and nobility were able to obtain the legitimacy of their rule based on this teaching. It was a challenge to the existing social order to say that a commoner could become a son of a god by jumping over this stage. To the clergy, the Apostle of Aseretto posed an even more practical problem. The creed of the Seonghwangseo consisted of the 'meditation record' left by Gon of Yesak and the 'gospel' left by six disciples of Gon of Yesak. Every single punctuation mark, even a single typo, was endowed with a sacred meaning. The authority of Seonghwangcheong mainly came from 'Meditation'. When the secular power took action against the Seonghwangcheong, the Seonghwangcheong excerpted a line that refuted it from the meditation record and pointed it out. When combined with excommunication, which is the authority of the emperor, there was nothing that would not work. A few years ago, when the Archduke of Asceretto tried to oust his mother-in-law and adopt the seven-year-old Bianca of Taranto as his second wife, Ludovico was defeated by the torch of neighbouring country monarchs, including Leo III, who feared that the inheritance of the Taranto domain would pass to Asceretto. The Emperor resolutely pushed the passages from the 'Meditation' to the Grand Duke of Aseretto.

- "Be hospitable to your wife." "Marriage is sacred." "Let the old man not covet the young."

When the divine authority of a meditation book is acknowledged, those excerpts were the categorical imperative. I just had to follow it unconditionally. On the other hand, if the Meditations, like the Gospels, come down as mere human language written when Yesak's Gon was human, then there is room for interpretation.

- "Be hospitable to your wife."

If this is not the word of God, but only the word of a man, might it not apply to a jealous and mean wife, rather than a generous wife who deserves hospitality?

- "Marriage is sacred."

Marriage is sacred because it gives birth to a blessed heir in the bosom of the Holy Spirit. If the wife is a virgin, should that marriage also be respected?

- "Let the old man not covet the young."

Wouldn't it be okay if the young man's mental age was precocious? Isn't it fitting that the above passage be exempted if the young love the older first? The Archduke of Asceretto, unable to withstand the threat of excommunication based on excerpts from the Meditations of Pope Ludovico, had to give up Bianca of Taranto. However, after the incident of coveting Bianca of Taranto was thwarted, the Archduke of Aseretto gave full support to the apostle of Aseretto, a man who was simply called 'Priest Alejandro' at the time. He gave him, who was only a regular priest, a palace hall where he could give sermons, and he set aside funds from the grand duchy's budget to be used to feed and clothe the young priests who came to visit the apostle. The result after just a few years was this. Priest Alejandro, now an apostle of Aseretto, was threatening the clergy and nobles with the people on his back. Ariadne stood behind Lucrezia, Isabella, and Arabella like a shadow at the far end of the balcony on the left side of the great hall, then stood quietly and out of sight. Arabella stood up and looked at Ariadne, but Ariadne quietly whispered to Arabella.

'I'm going to the bathroom for a minute.'

Ariadne took off all the gold earrings Lucrezia had given her and put them in her sleeves. A perfect stage required a perfect outfit. Ariadne held her breath and descended the steep stairs to the first floor of the Great Hall, hiding behind the stair railing and waiting for the decisive moment. The sermon of the Apostle of Aseretto was gradually approaching the climax.

"Gon of Yesak is, after all, a son of man!"

While the middle-aged man's heavy baritone voice reverberated throughout the Great Seonghwangdang and the audience listened to it with mixed feelings, a husky voice, heavy for a girl and pleasant to listen to, resonated through the space.

"Shame on you!"

It was Ariadne.

One\sromance, fantasy,

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