The Reversed Hierophant

“…A person’s life is always filled with many mistakes. The years I spent listening to confessions in the confessional were enough for me to recognize the weakness and folly of human will. They make many seemingly incomprehensible wrong choices, then at the crossroads of fate, they steadfastly choose the wrong path and continue down it without ever looking back.

“No one can avoid making mistakes forever. Vast wealth, lofty status, and prominent positions can minimize the probability of error, but conversely, once those who possess these things make a mistake, that mistake will be unimaginably profound.

“In my youth, I only understood the former truth. By the time I understood the latter, it was already too late…”

“Delacroix, my dearest friend in this life, as life approaches its end, I dare to sincerely affirm that no one will ever replace his position in my life. Even now, I must say this: I would have given my life for him—perhaps the cruelty of fate lies in this, that I actually murdered the friend for whom I would have laid down my life for. My God, it feels like some wretched, tasteless joke.”

“If someone had told me in my youth that I would betray Delacroix, I would have undoubtedly hung them from the city hall gates without hesitation. But… it suddenly occurs to me that over twenty years ago, I lost even the right to rage over such things. Holy Lord, the sinner before You now repents. Agony gnaws at my heart day and night—I am nearly crushed by guilt. Let me go to hell. How could a vile, despicable wretch like me share the same afterlife as my friend?”

There were dried water stains on the paper, resembling tears.

“If this letter is to be considered a statement from a sinner, it might serve as evidence in court. I considered destroying everything, but in the end, I hesitated. Just as every night is followed by dawn, my crimes, too, will inevitably come to light one day. Rather than leave others to speculate, I decided to write this confession myself.”

“The motive for this murder was very simple. Lav XI promised me certain things—though one could just as easily interpret it as a threat. It was for the sake of my family and my children. Let me emphasize: I personally gained no benefit from this—no wealth or power could ever outweigh Delacroix’s worth. Although it’s absurd to say this at this point, my only goal was to protect all members of the Tondolo family. Whether the reader believes this or not matters little. But I digress. In the end, I agreed to nurture this conspiracy, festering with corruption from its very inception.”

“Lav XI had been bedridden for several years. Based on the information I gathered, what brought him to this state was clearly not some ridiculous family hereditary disease. His queen, even if by my assessment, was a remarkable woman. Adding chronic poison to his diet would not have been difficult for her. Although this couple had long reached a point of mutual antagonism, I heard that Lav XI even forbade his wife and her ladies-in-waiting from approaching his chambers, his decrees were clearly ineffective.”

“As Lav XI’s health deteriorated, the struggle for the Roman succession had entered a fierce stage. Lav XI seemed to refuse to hand over the throne to his daughter born to Amandra. His hatred for his wife had extended to his child. Personally, I believe the child was blameless, but by all accounts, his only legitimate heir faced harsh treatment in the Roman court.”

“And Delacroix—my righteous, loyal friend—apparently agreed to Amandra’s request to travel to Rome and push for amendments to the succession laws. This, undoubtedly, became the spark for Lav XI’s revenge. I tried to dissuade Delacroix from going, but perhaps my insistence was too fervent, tipping him off to something amiss. My friend had always been perceptive—had our friendship not clouded his judgment, he might have… In the end, he refused to heed my advice.”

“I hid that Roman assassin in my carriage. How much my friend trusted me! He carefully identified and screened everyone in the team—it seems he was not completely unaware of Lav XI’s hatred, but he never suspected me.”

Years earlier, on that fateful night in a border town between Rome and the Papal States, the papal convoy was a day away from crossing the frontier. Cardinal Tondolo, still vigorous then, sat silently in his carriage, watching the assassin polish a short blade before coating it with a viscous green liquid.

“What is that?” the Cardinal asked softly.

“Belladonna,” the Roman assassin pronounced the word in somewhat stiff Latin.

A deadly poison that could kill with a single drop. No one could escape its hunt. These small fruits looked very similar to currants, easy to pick and collect. Assassins liked these round little fruits very much, affectionately calling them “the kiss of death.”

The Cardinal’s body involuntarily trembled when he heard the evil word, silently clenching the thorny wings beneath his robes.

“You are a Cardinal,” he didn’t speak, but the assassin spoke first, “I would like to confess—this is my habit before every job. In the past, I would find a nearby church, but some priests couldn’t even recite the scriptures clearly.”

Cardinal Tondolo choked, asking with difficulty, “You… are a believer?”

“Of course,” the assassin nodded matter-of-factly.

“Do you know who your target is?” Cardinal Tondolo confirmed once more.

“Of course,” this time the assassin’s eyes looked like he was looking at a madman.

The Cardinal’s mind fell into chaos.

A devout assassin, confessing to a Cardinal—his accomplice—before murdering the Pope, seeking absolution from the Holy Lord?

But he said nothing more. The assassin earnestly confessed to Cardinal Tondolo, then looked at the Cardinal with those emotionless eyes. The person being watched slowly reached out and touched the other’s forehead, the familiar words he had spoken thousands of times seeming to catch in his throat, making him feel suffocated.

But in the end, he still uttered those two words.

“Ego te absolvo.” (I absolve you.)

The assassin picked up the dagger from the table and tucked it into his clothes. The Cardinal sat there, knowing that this dagger would soon pierce the chest of his dearest friend—or perhaps his throat. If he stepped out now, he could still fulfill his old vow: to shield his friend, let that venomous steel sink into his own flesh instead. If he shouted now, if he—

Countless scenarios frantically raced through his brain. In the end, only his own words, “I absolve you,” echoed repeatedly in his mind, turning into a booming thunder.

This sound covered all his hearing until, ten minutes later, the curtain of his carriage was lifted by a panicked servant, and he vaguely realized that it was not just his hallucination, but that his surroundings had already fallen into chaos.

“An assassin—there’s an assassin—His Holiness is injured—”

The servant’s face was deathly pale as he reported to his master inside the carriage, “His Holiness has been assassinated, he has already…”

The Cardinal, who had been sitting upright in the carriage like a wooden statue, suddenly stood up. The servant helped him stumble out of the carriage. Illuminated by the torches outside, the servant belatedly realized that his master’s face was already covered in tears.

This discovery caused him to be somewhat careless. The Cardinal he was supporting almost tripped over a tree branch on the ground. The servant hurriedly apologized, but the Cardinal forcefully grabbed his arm, his voice hoarse and strange.

“I absolve you.”

Somehow, the servant heard something in those two simple words that made his hair stand on end.

“Delacroix is dead. My friend is dead—my comrade in ideals, my childhood confidant, my playmate from youth, my companion in travels across the lands… murdered by my hand on the night of September 18th, 1074, at 10:20 PM. The weapons that killed him were a Roman-made dagger and belladonna.”

“Before this murder occurred, I absolved the killer.”

————————————

The city gates of Gonda were tightly shut. The walls were constructed from large blocks of pale yellow rock, abundant in the mountains near Gonda. This rock was lustrous, hard, and massive, requiring gunpowder to blast it open. Then, quarry workers would tirelessly hammer and chisel it day and night, transporting the extracted stones on minecarts to build the wall that encircled the entire city of Gonda.

Amandra reined in her horse, gazing from afar at the winding city walls. This was a place she knew intimately. She had grown up here. Her father had seen her off at the city gate when she married. When she returned again, she was coldly rejected by her own home.

A smile, devoid of any discernible emotion, curled the corner of the Queen’s lips.

She wore very simple armor, only covering a few vital points. Her right hand hung down, the tip of her two-meter-long beheading sword dragging on the ground. The fierce cold weapon reflected the cold light of the sun, mirroring the vast army behind her, as if a pack of wolves were baring their fangs at Gonda.

The battering ram slowly pushed towards the bottom of the city walls. Stones soaked in sulfur and oil in the catapults were lit. With a sharp whistle, boulders carrying scorching flames flew towards the top of the wall, blossoms of blood erupting where they landed. The sheer momentum sent bodies flying, screams ringing out as a dozen lives were extinguished in an instant.

As the mechanically driven battering ram moved forward tirelessly, the Roman army also began to advance. Amandra felt somewhat dazed. For a brief moment, she couldn’t even distinguish who she was. An Assyrian? But she was leading the Roman army to attack the city of Gonda. A Roman? But even she herself was unwilling to admit it.

She suddenly recalled the negotiations with the High Priest before the siege. He was an old man on the verge of death. When she was stilll a girl, the High Priest had taken her hunting in the forest. At that time, the High Priest was in his strongest middle age.

It was a negotiation that ended in discord.

Amandra was certain that she was trying hard to persuade the High Priest, but the old man remained silent, merely listening.

He demanded that Amandra renounce the Assyrian crown, give up her rule over Assyria, or sever ties with Rome.

“Assyria needs a devout and independent monarch, not a queen who governs another nation. You haven’t returned for twenty years, Amandra. You have been gone for too long. Your people no longer recognize you.”

The High Priest spoke in a hoarse, aged voice. His gaze pierced through the tent, as if he could see the Roman soldiers outside: “You bring the Romans to Assyria, claiming it is for Assyria’s unification and independence… what difference is there between your actions and invasion?”

Amandra felt a chill run through her. “You—what do you mean by this?! I am the Queen of Assyria. Assyria can no longer rely on its own strength to restore peace. I’ve gone to great lengths to secure allies! And you accuse me of invading… my own country?”

She almost laughed at the absurdity.

But the High Priest did not laugh.

The old man’s drooping eyelids did not move, like an extremely weary old wolf. He held the scepter he had carved from the roots of an ancient tree, his posture regal and cold. “Assyria does not need allies! Under the protection of the Eternal Sky, we gallop across the grasslands and snow-capped mountains. We are the children of nature, the children of the sky! Assyria has always been independent and free. We do not need the help of other countries, nor do we deign to accept it. We can solve all our problems ourselves.”

Amandra’s face was grim. “We can’t! Otherwise, why has Assyria been in chaos for so many years?”

“Perhaps we can’t,” the High Priest surprisingly did not strongly insist on his point of view. He said calmly and coldly, “But the Eternal Sky will send a hero—just as your ancestor Chieftain Bairaetu united Assyria and passed the royal bloodline to you. Someone will rise. And he will be Assyrian.”

Amandra stared at him, already realizing what the High Priest was about to say next.

Sure enough, after a moment of pause, the old man asked calmly, “Amandra, you left Assyria over twenty years ago. You married in Rome, bore children, ruled its people. You are Rome’s wife now—no longer Assyria’s daughter.”

The High Priest slowly stood up. Despite his old age, his movements were still steady. “Go back, child. Let Assyria solve its own problems. Your home is on the other side of the Black Sea.”

Her own country had rejected her return, declaring that she no longer belonged there.

After the negotiations broke down, Amandra decided to lead the troops herself. A betrayed queen, commanding a foreign army to storm her own capital—it was a farce from start to finish. Yet this was the reality she faced.

Wasn’t her departure from Assyria to Rome initially to exchange for peace in Assyria? Now that the Roman threat to Assyria was lifted, the High Priest could righteously erase all her sacrifices. They had never seen her struggles in Rome, nor cared for the years she and Sancha had given. Since when did the world reward loyalty with such ingratitude?

What was hers would remain hers.

If need be, she would become the next Bairaetu herself.

The gates, shattered by the ram, collapsed inward. The waiting defenders surged forward in formation. Amanra lowered her body, clinging to her horse’s back. With a squeeze of her legs, the steed shot out like a sharp arrow flying close to the ground, the beheading sword drawing brilliant sparks on the ground, followed by the equally fierce Roman soldiers behind her.

The High Priest, standing on the city wall, his old eyes blurred, could no longer see the specific details, but he still caught sight of the figure charging ahead at the very front.

“Is that her?”

The priest beside him replied, “It’s Amandra—she looks the same as before.”

“The same as before…” the High Priest said softly, “I still remember when she was young, how beautiful she was, the daughter of Assyria, the pearl of Gonda. She went to fight in place of her father. People called her the Warrior Princess. She had a scar under her eye, left from the Battle of the Port.”

The figure charging ahead on the battlefield clashed with the troops pouring out of the city gate, and immediately large sprays of blood erupted, staining the sandy ground red.

The High Priest said nothing more. He silently gazed in that direction, his expression sorrowful and solemn. Soldiers hurried past him. Everyone who recognized him showed a devout and respectful look, striking their chests in salute.

“The Warrior Princess of Assyria, in the end, still pointed her blade at the Assyrians. Perhaps we should never have agreed to that marriage alliance with Rome.” His words were barely audible. “…Better she had died in battle as an Assyrian.”

This question was destined to remain unanswered. The High Priest did not seek an answer. The past could not be undone. They were all prisoners of fate, driven forward by its unrelenting tide.

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