The Sensory Animals of Ston Hill

The Earl of Arundel went to meet Grace in a humble inn in the suburbs.

He also disguised himself, but he was still seen as a nobleman.The poor people stared at him with hatred.Today such sights are not without power, they represent danger.The Earl of Arundel quickened his pace and walked in.

Grace sat motionless at the little table by the window, her hands on her lap, her eyes looking out the window like a statue.

The door opened and closed again, and Grace only slightly turned her head towards Earl Arundel, like a statue alive for a second.

"You should know how much risk I took to send you out, Grace. People already suspect that I helped you escape." Earl of Arundel said in a low voice as he took off his hat.He knew why Grace came back, so he felt extremely displeased, "Colonel Ston was one of the few survivors of the prison massacre. People saw his abilities and kept him under stricter surveillance. Your escape also Let people be full of vigilance against the escape of political prisoners, and all checkpoints are strictly guarded, and it is impossible to help him escape from prison."

The sculpture named Grace was silent for a while, and asked, "Where are my two maids?"

"Sent to the provinces, and left on the same night as you," replied the Earl of Arundel.

"...Thank you." Grace's eyes finally became a little vivid, and she asked again: "Where are the children?"

The Earl of Arundel looked at him questioningly.

Grace felt strange and anxious, "Didn't Eva take the children away? Are the children still in the house behind Crown Plaza?"

The Earl of Arundel showed a clear expression, "You can't take children with you when you flee. They are safe in the capital, and I have made arrangements."

Grace breathed a sigh of relief.After a while he said, "You see, I still trust you so much that I came to you, knowing that only you can figure out how to—"

"Don't use those pretentious honorifics with me, Grace." The earl interrupted him with a frown, a little rude.He also noticed it himself, and was very dissatisfied with himself for speaking in such a tone, and switched to a commanding tone: "You stay here first, and I will pick you up in the evening and take you to England."

"You also want to learn from those fugitive nobles? Are you afraid of revenge from a peddler?"

"You know this kind of talk doesn't work for me, Grace. Not only the personal grievance, but the whole situation has become worse. The front line is completely defeated, we are suppressed by the multinational army on the border, and the radicals still want to take the initiative to declare war. They want the country and the monarchs of all Europe to be enemies. The whole ship is sinking, and there is no point in fighting for the captain's position."

"Then stop them! Haven't radicals caused enough disasters?!" Grace said "radicals", as if she wanted to chew the words in her mouth.

"It's no use, they'll gain the upper hand more and more. The overriding fear of the common people's fear of being robbed of their immediate victory, of going back to the past, has driven them into madness. They have imagined countless enemies, only the claims of the Radicals If their fantasies can be satisfied, the constitutional monarchy has no chance of standing up."

Grace realized that the same dangers he had foreseen, the Earl had also foreseen.The man in front of him only fights battles that are sure to win, and never allows himself to take any risks. When he judges that the situation is not good for him, he can give up everything without hesitation.

But Grace wanted to fight again.

"You said that people's fears have surpassed everything. They are afraid that foreign monarchs will give them a king again, that nobles will become lords again, and that higher taxes will be imposed. But these fears are essentially fears of starvation and bread becoming more expensive. "

The Earl of Arundel raised his eyebrows, and frankly faced his own failure, "You are right, bread is the most important thing. People finally decided not to support me because I did not enforce restrictions on bread as they expected price."

"That's because your supporters are the big businessmen and the big bourgeois, and they will never agree. You are in the same predicament as the king."

The Earl of Arundel showed a surprised expression.

"My lord, do you think the Radicals can make bread cheaper? You see, this year's spring has come so late, and there will still be no good harvest this year. The Radicals also advocate an all-out war, but most of the noble officers have been exiled, who will do it for you?" Do they fight? They are doomed to wear down, bread will grow more expensive, and people will turn their wrath on them as they have abandoned the king and you.”

The Earl of Arundel heard the change in him.In the past at the conference table, when Grace talked about this, her words were full of sympathy, but now there is only coldness.

"You have a point, but that is a hypothesis after all. Even if your prediction is correct, there is no guarantee that you, as the last remaining symbol of the monarchy, can survive such a situation before the radicals collapse. You Do you know how many nobles are beheaded every day? They even brought a guillotine from abroad, just to speed up the execution and complete the daily beheadings."

"Grace, listen to me, save your own life, and you will have a chance in the future."

Grace's green eyes were burning, "I can't wait, Ellen is in jail and could be judged at any moment. Aren't you the best at turning people into guns? I'll let you use it again. I'm Your gun, help you get back what you just lost, and you have to help me get back mine!"

The Earl of Arundel suddenly felt angry. He suppressed it and asked Grace: "Who did you learn from? From the king? He also chose to stay so stupidly at that time. You have seen his fate!"

"...Chris..." The flames in Grace's eyes went out a bit, "Did Chris choose to stay?...What did he tell you?"

"Useless words as impractical as you."

"I want to hear what he has to say."

"Grace, you're getting stupid."

"Please."

The Earl of Arundel turned his face in displeasure, "He said, the king cannot leave his land. The people can accuse him as much as they can, and he doesn't care, because he knows he is innocent. But if he does For a fugitive monarch, that would be a real disgrace."

Grace lowered her eyes, remained silent for a while, and then asked, "Did he say anything before he died?"

"He only lied before he died... The king said in public that it was the queen who brought him disaster, and that the queen bewitched him to promote democracy and restart the meeting. The queen is the queen of the common people, not his. He still wants to announce that he has made peace with you Annulled marriage, but the protests of the people were so loud that the executioner did not let him finish—"

"Stop talking." Grace interrupted him, propping her forehead with her hands, resting her elbows on the table, and hanging her head, "Stop talking."

But the Earl of Arundel continued: "The king gave up all his reputation just to save your life. Are you really going to be stupid? Risk your life for useless things?"

"It won't be useless." Grace maintained that posture and turned into a statue again.

After a long time, the contemplative statue came to life again.He raised his head slightly, and the Earl of Arundel could no longer see any emotion when he saw his face, and those green eyes became two cold dead things.

Grace's body was in silence, only her fingers brushed unconsciously at the root of the hair on her forehead, and she said in a low and slow voice, "Let me think about it... the words of the king before he dies won't be weightless... ...I'll figure it out."

His voice was very calm.At this time, the Earl of Arundel discovered that the biggest change in Grace was not the loss of her beautiful hair, but that there was no previous innocence in his eyes.

He couldn't help but leaned down.

As he leaned closer, Grace flinched back in surprise at being interrupted, avoiding his lips.The eyes of the two were so close that they could see the meaning clearly, but Earl Arundel still chased forward once, and Grace leaned back even more.

The green eyes were as calm as stagnant water, and the tide in the gray eyes also receded.

Earl Arundel straightened up, took two steps to the side, and turned sideways.

"My lord, I will try again to persuade you to stay," said Grace, "but not as a royalist. The king is gone, and the royalist position is useless. You and your companions just want to Take those seats, don't let your enemies take them all, or it's really all over. That's the beauty of democracy, right? One seat, one vote, sit in the same conference room with them, and bite each other to your heart's content Bar."

"I'm not coming back as a queen either. Chris is right, I can't be the king's queen - people can smash a crown once and they can smash it a second time, and killing a queen is no better for them than killing a queen." The king is more difficult. I want to be the "queen of the common people", the illegitimate daughter of a poor woman, the close ally of Commodore Ston who died for the country, and the leader of reform hated by the king because he was devoted to the people."

"I heard on the way here that radicals are looking for a goddess to symbolize democracy. Churches and monasteries have been looted, crosses have been burned, and people desperately need a substitute to worship."

"They haven't figured out whether she's going to be blond or brown, have a long or round face, wear a skirt or pants, and they're arguing about what she's going to be called."

"I will stand in front of people and let them know that their goddess should be beautiful, with intelligent eyes and solemn mouth. Do you know Cybele? That is the most worshiped goddess of war in ancient Rome. Meeting Like looking for inspiration from classical civilizations, I wear long dresses like ancient Rome. People will know that their goddess has golden brown hair, but cut short, between a man and a woman. 'She' wears She wears a white dress with a badge that symbolizes the revolution on her chest, and her name is also full of sacred meanings, meaning "the grace of democracy". The queen of the common people became the goddess of the common people. When the revolution was in trouble, "she" still did not abandon them. As in the early days of the rough start of democracy. It couldn't be more reasonable."

"Grace, why do you have to put yourself in the center of danger?"

"My lord, do you still remember the vengeful whale? The whale was robbed of its beloved, so it must no longer be afraid of bloodshed."

More than ten days later, Johnson Schilling drove Grace to the tax station outside the capital city.He stopped the car and saw Grace took off the thick cloak that was wrapped around her body, revealing the skirt with only one layer underneath.

It was still cold and windy, and Grace was shivering.Johnson Schilling had an idea: "No wonder people like to wear dark clothes when it's cold, because white looks cold."

Grace gritted her teeth and clenched her fists in the cold.After he got used to the cold and stopped shaking, he looked up at Johnson Schilling: "Do I look similar to the goddess in that painting?"

Johnson Schilling nodded sincerely.

Grace got out of the car.

It snowed last night, and the weather turned slightly warmer after dawn, and the snow turned into mud.Grace stepped barefoot in the cold muddy water.He took two steps towards the tax station, stopped again, and turned around to ask Johnson Schilling: "Do you really have a lot of boats at home?"

Johnson Schilling was very surprised and asked him: "How did you know?" He suddenly realized, "Did Alan tell you?"

Grace's eyes suddenly burst into intense sadness, and quickly faded away, "It's a pity that I haven't been on your family's boat."

Schilling didn't know why he said that, but Grace had already moved on to the tax station.

People spotted him quickly, and it was easy to see that his clothing and short hair closely resembled a statue of the Goddess of Democracy that has been popular in the streets recently.This was the last thing the Earl did for him before going into exile.

People could not help but surround him, but he kept walking, silent and firm, not stopping for anything.So people followed him around and behind him, like a scatter net of people spread around him.

People saw his feet stepping in the mud, and when he lifted his heels, the muddy water was splashed on the hem of the skirt that reached to his ankles, and the white was gradually dyed into the color of the mud.They saw his short hair fluttering in the wind, and the hem of his skirt was filled with the wind, like an open sail.

The guard soldiers at the tax gate also came, saying that he was the fugitive queen, and wanted to arrest him.However, several men and women arranged by the count in advance immediately surrounded him, shouting "Goddess of Democracy", and other people also flocked to him. With doubts and worries, they quickly tightened like a net.

Grace finally stopped, stood in the middle of the tightening crowd, raised a fist, and shouted: "The queen was held hostage by the nobles in exile, but she escaped back by herself! The commoner queen will never abandon her people!"

People cheered: "Long live the Queen of the Commoners! Long live the Goddess of Democracy!" The guards were squeezed in the crowd and felt that it was no fun, so they all put away their guns and joined the cheering ranks.

People carried Grace into a carriage.Someone held his feet in their arms, wiped the mud off his feet with clothes, and kissed the back of his feet.

He was sent to what used to be the King's Palace, now the Municipal Building.Sitting in the car, he saw the former peddler Jerry and the current radical leader George Constantinos coming out of the building.

He saw George Constantinos staring at him amidst the cheers, with surprise in his eyes.But he couldn't see whether the surprise was due to the queen's return, or to the fact that the queen was Grace.But these are not important, because he has nothing to do with himself.

He also saw the bloodthirsty, excited light in those sly eyes.