A young maid carried a large bucket and walked along the path with some difficulty, and at the end of the lower road a brook was gurgling.

Although it was already April, the river was still a little cold, so the maid put the bucket on the edge of the stream, took out a pile full of clothes and a very strong wooden stick, soaked the clothes in the water, and then squatted down by the stream and began to beat it vigorously.

The brook was not wide, and on the other side was the wall of a monastery built close to the bank, which was so old that the wall was blackened, and it stood tall and stood tall.

In addition to the maid, there were several young women like her washing their clothes on the banks of the stream, and the sound of wooden sticks beating one after another sounded as if they were competing with each other.

In the midst of this beating, the women still hurried to talk non-stop, and from time to time there were bursts of laughter by the stream.

"Is your mistress okay?" A slightly chubby woman ran to the young maid's side, patted her clothes with a wooden stick, and asked curiously, "I heard that she is a great nobleman in the city of Rome, so the noble lady must not be very easy to serve." ”

"It's all right," said the maid, putting her clothes on the stone upside down, first rubbing her hands before patting her gently with a wooden stick, "she looks fine, and quiet without so much to do." ”

"That's good, those aristocratic women are sometimes very rude, do you know, it is said that there was a noble lady in the seminary, who actually had to eat different food every day, and she also stipulated that she must wear washed clothes every day, but there are only those two monastic clothes, and as a result, I have to wash her clothes almost every day, and my hands are all cracked because of this."

The young maid looked at the fat woman with some pity, and looked at her fat body, and knew how painful it was for her to squat by the stream every day to wash her clothes.

In fact, her mistress also asked for freshly washed clothes every day, but unlike the other women in the monastery, her mistress had many monastic clothes, so she was not busy changing clothes every day.

"I've heard that someone always comes to see your hostess, right?" The fat woman asked curiously, "Tell me, who are they?" ”

At this, the young maid stopped, and she tilted her head to look in both directions, as if she were afraid that someone would hear, and then she whispered in a low voice, "I tell you not to spread the word, you must know that she is a great nobleman in the city of Rome, and if she knows that I am talking nonsense, I will be unlucky." ”

Hearing the maid's words, the fat woman immediately nodded excitedly, her hand had stopped patting her clothes, and she just stared at the young maid with a curious face and said urgently: "Don't worry, I will never spread the word." ”

After receiving the other party's assurance, the maid seemed to be really relieved, and continued in a low voice: "Those people look like some amazing characters, I have seen several of them dressed in clothes that we have never seen before, and some of their retinue look like knights, and just a few days ago I saw a young man who came in a carriage, he looked like a duke, not only beautiful but also noble, these people seem to like my mistress very much, And they were very good with her, and the duke-like young man I had just spoken of brought her many things, and it seemed as if the dean were very respectful to him. ”

"Oh, that's pretty good," the fat woman looked at the maid enviously, "that's much better than me, most of the noble ladies I know who come to the convent are not easy to deal with, and I once served a woman who hid in the convent to give birth to a child, and it was a nightmare for me during that time. And most of those women were ignored by them, and they either sent them away after they gave birth, or they were in the monastery, and then they left on their own, and we didn't get anything good from them at all. ”

"My hostess gave me a big patty yesterday with a lot of meat stuffed into it." The young maid said something ostentatious, and then she began to describe what was in the meatloaf, and her description made the fat woman next to her almost drool until a white thing floated through the river out of the corner of her eye.

The fat woman was accustomed to glancing at it, and when she saw that it was the clothes she had put on the stones, she couldn't help screaming, and she stood up hard and ran downstream after the clothes, and there was a group of women gloating and laughing from the shore.

The fat woman didn't care about the ridicule, she knew that the dress was very valuable, and if Nong lost it, she would definitely not be able to afford it, which made her frightened all over, and then she simply ignored the cold water of the stream, lifted the hem of her skirt and gritted her teeth and went down to the creek to chase the clothes that kept drifting.

But the worse thing was that as the terrain lowered, a downward ramp was formed not far ahead, and the stream, which had been gently flowing, suddenly became slightly turbulent, and the garment rushed downstream in the rapidity.

The fat woman let out an anxious cry, her head was now full of droplets, and she didn't know whether it was the splash of the stream or the cold sweat of fear, when she stopped in exhaustion and despair, and looked at the clothes that drifted farther and farther, and could no longer catch up, she suddenly heard a faint sound of horses' hooves.

It was not a single horse, but the sound of several horses, the sound of heavy hooves striking the ground from far and near, and the woman was accustomed to look into the distance of the creek bank in front of her, and happened to see a troop of horsemen coming in her direction along the bank of the creek.

The fat woman instinctively pointed to the clothes that were drifting away in the distance, and then put down her hand in frustration.

But a surprise came to her, and one of the knights who were at the front of the cavalry seemed to notice her movements, and when he saw the clothes in the stream, the knight seemed to smile, and then suddenly led his horse and jumped into the stream, and then drew his saber from his waist, and bent down to pick up the clothes that had drifted in front of him.

The fat woman let out a scream of delight, and she even jumped in the water, but the action nearly tripped over the hem of her skirt wrapped around her legs.

The knight walked forward in the brook with his saber carrying his wet clothes, and when he came to the fat woman, he leaned down on his saber, and the wet clothes slid into the fat woman's outstretched arms.

It was only then that the women on the banks of the river noticed the knight's rather strange clothes.

Compared to the mighty knight, who was either covered in ornate armor, or the tattered mercenary, this knight and his companions were dressed differently.

They all wore fish-spine helmets on their heads, but none of them had the popular masks on their helmets, and their armor seemed too thin except to protect some vital parts of their bodies, a slightly curved plate armor like an iron vest was put on their bodies to protect their torsos, and their limbs were not protected except for the sturdy-looking leather bracers on their wrists.

The knights' shirts were red, their trousers were black, and the sturdy-looking plush tunic was buttoned tightly to the buttonholes on the edge of the breastplate, as if the whole person was combined with the oddly shaped cuirass.

All the horsemen did not carry spears or swords, but a rare saber hung diagonally from the saddle, and in the holsters of the wide belts around the waists of these horsemen hung several strange bulging things.

The one who retrieved the fat woman's clothes was a young-looking knight, wearing the same cuirass and coat as the others, with the only difference being a short black velvet cloak behind him.

The fat woman's face flushed, and she looked up at the young knight in front of her with her hands in her hands, holding her clothes that were still dripping with water, and seemed to have completely forgotten that she should thank him.

"Where is this?"

It wasn't until the young knight asked a second question that the fat woman let out an "oh" and replied hurriedly, "This is the Abbey of St. Teresa." ”

"So you're all trainee nuns?" The young knight seemed a little surprised, but looking at the women's clothes, he immediately knew that he had guessed wrong, "If we can, we want to meet the dean here, okay?" ”

"We don't know," said the fat woman, a little silly, "that the Abbey of St. Teresa easily does not allow men to enter. ”

"That's terrible."

The young knight muttered to himself, and he looked back the way he came, a hint of anxiety on his face.

Perhaps it was because he had been very helpful, or perhaps simply because he was a knight who looked very young, the fat woman continued, "But if you want to see the abbot, you can do it, but only with the permission of the deacon nun. ”

Hearing her words, the young knight smiled, and he first greeted the fat woman with a little gratitude, and then turned back to one of the horsemen who followed him and ordered in a loud voice: "Go back quickly and tell your lord that we have arrived at a convent called St. Teresa." ”

"Yes, Captain Oflei!" The horseman quickly turned his horse's head and ran towards the way he came.

"Is this called St. Teresa's Abbey?" The young knight said as he took out a notebook with a charcoal pen tied to it from a large leather bag in the saddle, and quickly drew a sketch on it with the charcoal pen, then looked around, made a few more annotations on the sketch, and then carefully put away the notebook.

"Do you want to see the abbot?" The young maid who had spoken to the fat woman before came over, she had obviously seen more of the world than the other women, and she even paid special attention to the pattern on the flag held by the flag bearer among the cavalrymen.

A very strange pattern, an equilateral triangle with a circle completely filled with three sides, and in the left and right sides of the circle and the blank space of the triangle, respectively, are two bundles of wheat that cross each other and a castle.

The maid stared at the strange banner with some curiosity, and though the people who came to visit her mistress seemed to have deliberately hidden, she could still find some obvious marks on the many small things on them, the most impressive of which was the coat of arms of a red bull, which she was sure she had never seen before.

"Can you tell me where the deacon nun is?" The cavalry captain, known as Captain Oflei, asked the young maid, which caused the fat woman to be dissatisfied, and she was tempted to squeeze away from the nasty woman who was younger and prettier than herself, but it was clear that the cavalry captain had no interest in her, although he had helped her retrieve her clothes.

"The deacon nun is in the house of the convent," replied the young maid with a little excitement, although many people came to visit her mistress, but no one ever noticed her, and now the young captain made her suddenly feel that she had become the most attractive of all these women, and this made her feel indescribable pride, "May I ask you also come to visit my mistress?" ”

"Your mistress?" The young captain asked with some puzzlement.

"Yes, didn't you come to see my mistress?" The maid seemed to find it a little strange, since her mistress came here, although she had been careful to hide in the monastery and not go out casually, but people had been coming to see her all this time.

And these people often have to bring her a lot of things when they come, which makes the maid feel that the mistress is like a princess.

But it was strange to her that these people were not coming to see her mistress.

"Then who are you, and why are you meeting the dean?" The maid couldn't help but ask a little warily.

"We are the Agri," the young cavalry captain smiled proudly, "we are the huntsmen of Lord Agrí Alexandre Juliant Gombray, and my name is Apelo Oflei, and I am the captain of the marching army beside my lordship. ”

The maid had a puzzled look on her face, and just as she was about to speak again, she suddenly heard a faint sound.

The women looked up in surprise and looked into the distance, only to see a cloud of smoke and dust rising from a long distance.

The deacon nun of the convent of St. Teresa was an old nun who was even fatter than the fat woman who washed the clothes.

Dressed in a black nun's garment, which made people worry that the fat that was wrapped in it would break apart at any moment, the deacon nun sternly rejected his request when he met her under the guidance of the maid and asked to stay in the house outside the convent.

"This is not allowed, although you have not entered the monastery, but these places are still the property of the monastery, and the nuns are not allowed to see men." The deacon nun said coldly, "You must know that even their relatives can never see them again once they are really no longer trainee nuns, this is the abode of the bride of God, and no men can be allowed to enter." ”

It was the first night after leaving Rome, as the captain of the leading cavalry, he had to explore the terrain and find a good enough camp for the team behind, but now the nun's indifferent attitude made him feel helpless for a while.

Offrey looked helplessly at the fat nun in front of him, and just as he was pondering how to ask for the oversized "bride of God", a figure flashed on the path in the distance outside the window and caught his attention.

It was evidently a man, and a very young man, and he was leading his horse out of a small door under the tall walls of the monastery.