Cersei walked up the steps and entered the Great Sept of Baelor,
Entering the Hall of Lights, she saw more than twenty monks kneeling on the ground, wearing simple linen robes and sandals, carrying wood and soap to wipe the floor.
"Even this place is full of these humble sparrows!" Cersei raised her wrist and covered her mouth and nose with a silk handkerchief, as if these dirty sparrows had polluted the air.
"Your Majesty!" One of the sparrows raised his head and said,
"Brother Donald!" The Queen Mother looked at this familiar bishop in surprise. His face was red and the blisters on his hands were bleeding.
"What are you doing?"
"He is working," the man who answered her was of average height but as thin as a hemp pole. "Working is also a kind of prayer, especially to please the blacksmith!" He stood up with a brush in his hand.
"I've been waiting for you for a long time, Queen Mother!"
Cersei looked at this man carefully. His beard was half gray but neatly trimmed. His sparse hair was combed back. Although his robes were clean, they were frayed and patched. He had rolled up his sleeves to facilitate labor, but his robes were worn below the knees.
All wet and soaked. My feet were bare.
She was surprised to find that those black feet were as hard and rough as tree roots, covered with calluses, and extremely ugly.
"Are you the new Archbishop?"
"That's right!"
"Is this person the High Sparrow?" the Queen Mother thought to herself,
Yili said that the Queen Mother should bow at this time, but she looked at the sewage and soap on the ground and really didn't want to dirty her clothes.
"Where is my friend Maubert?"
Maubert was her favorite archbishop. She originally thought that he would succeed the archbishop in this election.
"Brother Maubert is penance in the solitary cell. During the penance, we only provide bread and water. Half the country is starving, and it is a sin for him to be so fat."
The Queen Mother's face darkened,
The archbishop had just let so many bishops mop the floor here and imprisoned the archbishop just after he took office. This shows that he has already controlled the power of the church. Why is such a person who has no foundation and appears out of nowhere like this?
"Do you know who I am? Is this how you greeted me? With a dripping brush?"
"The Queen Mother is the regent of the Seven Kingdoms," the old sparrow replied, "but the Seven Stars Bible says that the common people should pay tribute to the lords, the lords should pay tribute to the king, and the king and queen should pay tribute to the seven gods in one!"
The old sparrow's answer was neither humble nor arrogant. It had neither the groveling of the previous archbishops nor the arrogance of the fanatics!
"According to etiquette, you should wear a robe and a crystal crown and come to the stairs to greet me!"
"I have no crown, Queen Mother!"
"Why? Didn't the royal family give you an extremely luxurious crown, made of gold and crystal."
"For this crown!" the old sparrow saluted. This was the first time the old sparrow saluted after they met.
"But the working people are still hungry. I have no right to wear gold and crystal on my head, so I sold it. I also sold other tiaras in the storeroom, all the rings and gold and silver woven robes."
.The Seven Gods created sheep, and their wool is enough to keep humans warm."
The old sparrow's words made the believers and monks in the hall kneel on the ground and pray to him!
Cersei felt extremely uncomfortable. This new archbishop was different from any previous monk. He neither feared power nor was obsessed with gold and silver. What did he want?
She suppressed this doubt and continued:
"King Tommen needs you to send away the refugees in King's Landing and dissolve your followers. The king can declare them innocent as long as they go home!"
"But they no longer have a home... There is suffering everywhere, there is sorrow and death everywhere."
"Before coming to King's Landing, I was responsible for taking care of fifty or sixty small villages. Those villages were too small to have their own monks. I went from one village to another, officiating at weddings, absolving sins, and naming children. Now,
All these villages have disappeared, Your Majesty, and the beautiful gardens of the past are overgrown with weeds and thorns, and bones are scattered and piled up by the roadside."
How could Cersei care about this! She said forcefully: "These atrocities are all caused by the North and Stannis!"
"But some sparrows also saw the soldiers of the Lannister family. In Saltworks Town, they killed an old monk..."
"Dear Queen Mother!" The old sparrow stood in front of Cersei and looked directly at her.
"What were the king's knights doing when these atrocities were committed? Did Jaehaerys, the Arbiter, not swear on the Iron Throne that the crown would always protect the church?"
The old sparrow showed his dagger word by word!
It's a pity that Cersei has never read any books and has no idea what he is talking about...
In fact, because the church's teachings oppose incest and the Targaryens have always married within themselves, conflicts often break out between the two.
Jaehaerys was the fourth king of the Targaryen dynasty. When he succeeded to the throne, the church's armed forces had ceased to exist in name only due to the suppression of previous kings, but they had not been completely disbanded and continued to strive to restore their old strength. Moreover, the church enjoyed
The power of inquisition led many greedy monks to take whatever they wanted from lords everywhere. Jaehaerys negotiated with the High Septon. The king swore that the Iron Throne would protect and defend the church forever, in exchange for the remaining armed members of the order to lay down their weapons and the church to hand over the power of inquisition.
These two actions directly made the church a vassal of the royal power! There will be no more trouble.
But now, the new Archbishop, Old Sparrow, actually mentioned this matter again!
And his target is the "smart" woman in front of him who currently has the most power in the Seven Kingdoms, Queen Cersei!
...
Half a day later, Cersei walked out of the Great Sept of Baelor with satisfaction.
He took away the date when the Archbishop would bless and crown Tommen, and canceled the royal family's debt of 900,000 gold coins.
At the same time, he left a promise to restore the church's armed and judicial power,
A month after Linn returned to Storm's End, he received an order from the royal family that was announced throughout the territory.
Restore the armed and judicial power of the Church of the Seven Gods! The church will reorganize the Knights of the Holy Sword and the Knights of the Stars!
Linn was shocked!
How stupid does Cersei have to be to agree to such a thing? Who does she think she is? The monsters that generations of Targaryen kings rode on dragons and fought for many years before reluctantly locking up were just like this, and she easily unshackled them!
And it’s still in this chaotic time!
How much damage was caused by the War of the Five Kings! The more troubled the times, the more fertile the soil for the growth of religion.
What do people shrouded in despair do when they cannot be saved? They can only seek spiritual support, and the best way is faith!
"Just wait and see, once this wind blows, it will definitely cover the sky and make everyone panic and fearful!"
Fortunately, his Storm's End had no church from the beginning,
He will not allow religious fanatics to appear in his territory in the future.
