immortal person

Cardinal Crozzi Orsini is very different from what he was five years ago.The elegant demeanor he wore in the past is no longer impeccable, like a layer of iron armor with rust holes; he has lost some weight and looks older than his actual age, like an old blue sheep.He spoke to Lorenzo in a low, rapid, almost urgent manner.Lorenzo bowed his head and listened, nodding slightly in agreement now and then, but Giovanni saw that he was not as patient as he appeared.Bishop Orsini, not noticing, or pretending not to be, moved closer to Lorenzo with increasing eagerness, even raising his voice a little. "...it will not be difficult for you..." Giovanni heard him say intermittently.

Lorenzo shook his head and explained a few words to the bishop in a low voice.

"This must be a joke. If you..." Orsini obviously didn't trust his words, and scratched his goatee anxiously, "...the emperors in the whole of Europe are poor."

Giovanni raised his eyebrows: he probably guessed what the bishop wanted.

He walked silently behind them, hiding under the shadow of the laurel tree.The two people who were not far away tried to blame each other for a long time, but Lorenzo still did not let go, and the bishop no longer tried to force his composure: "Please think of Catherine! Our Catherine, my poor sister who died young! You have forgotten She, two years after her death? Doesn't she deserve your sympathy? I'm her brother..."

"Kate has passed away for four years, my lord." Finally, Lorenzo looked at him, "It seems that I have a better memory than you."

His expression was almost indifferent.Orsini felt his hidden dissatisfaction slowly, and he froze for a moment: "...Really? Please forgive my bad memory."

He forced a smile, as if he had taken a smile out of a box of expressions and put it on his face.Giovanni stopped listening and was about to turn to leave when he heard a soft cough behind him.

The first thing he saw was a silver silk fan pinned with peacock feathers.At some point, a young girl stood behind him, wearing a Greek-style white robe, and her long chestnut hair was wrapped with golden cinnamon branches.She hides her face behind a fan, but you can still see her smiling.

"It seems that we are waiting for the same gentleman." She gestured to Lorenzo with her eyes, "would you mind speaking to me a few words?—Before our Augustus [1] has no time to talk to us when,."

Lorenzo and the bishop had already left in the distance. To be precise, Lorenzo was walking, while Orsini followed closely.Giovanni withdrew his gaze and said in a flat tone, "I don't think he would agree with this title."

"Really?" she smiled, "but no one would be surprised if he was wearing a purple-trimmed toga today—please don't tell him what I said."

Giovanni's eyes fell on the coat of arms on her front.A half-decayed oak tree.

"Bianca Pazzi." As if responding to his gaze, she announced her name, "You have a new face, I don't seem to have seen you in the city before? Please don't mind, I'm just curious. It's not often that I can't figure out who I am."

He rarely appeared on the social scene, and this was the first time since returning to Florence.But this does not prevent the conjecture that this name can bring - the eldest daughter of François Pazzi, if nothing unexpected happens.

"Giovanni Buonarrotti."

With a snap, Bianca closed the silk fan: "I've heard the name before. You're a sculptor, aren't you?"

Before Giovanni answered, she laughed: "Don't be surprised, I know every famous person in the city," she said proudly, "especially the famous people gathered in this palace-everyone who is going to marry Girls will pay more attention."

Giovanni contemplates the golden laurel twigs in her hair; Daphne. [2]

"You compare yourself to Livia?"[3]

At this moment, there was only a sound like an arrow flying upwards, and a large round crimson firework bloomed over the garden, six times in a row, the radiance was dazzling, forming the pattern of the family coat of arms.In the crowd that looked up, they were still looking at each other.Bianca smiled at him and moved her lips, her voice drowned in applause and cheers.Giovanni read her lips: "Why not?"

He stared at it for a while, then turned and left.After the fireworks stopped, people still hadn't looked away from the sky, and he was already walking straight towards Lorenzo.Bianca called out his name in astonishment, not expecting him to take the first step.She held up her skirt and chased after him for two steps, and had to stop after meeting Lorenzo's gaze.The Duke looked in their direction at some point, and even smiled at him.For a moment Giovanni thought he had recognized himself.

He stopped in front of them, bowed to the Bishop, and begged him to excuse his interruption.Then he turned to the Duke and asked in a low voice: "Would you please give me a moment?"

Behind Apollo's mask, the deep blue eyes watched him with interest.Lorenzo said, "Of course."

He took Giovanni's hand so naturally, like a pair of close friends.The bishop watched them go reluctantly, seemed to want to catch up with them, and ended up just pacing back and forth in place.The sound of the piano came from behind them, an slow dance music, as gentle and melancholy as flowing water in the forest.And they have gone far.

"Why," said Lorenzo, smiling sideways at him when they came to the path in the woods, where there were no one around, "do you want me to dance, sir?"

Giovanni looked sideways at him: "Is that okay?"

Lorenzo held out his hand to him; a gesture inviting him to dance.

"...Still not." He was embarrassed.

Lorenzo bowed his head and smiled, exhaling warmly, and Giovanni guessed he was a little drunk. "Let's go to the back, Don Buonarroti," said Lorenzo.They came to the depths of the garden, and the fine stars were reflected in the running water, making it look like the river of golden sand in the myth.A few male peacocks walked among the rockery with their heads held high, and when they saw them approaching, they immediately opened their tail feathers.

"How do you know it's me?" Giovanni asked him.

"This is the mask I prepared for you." Lorenzo smiled and unbuttoned his mask, revealing those deep gray eyes completely, "Vulcan, Hephaestus. Besides you, there are Which guest would choose this humble deity?"

Giovanni shook his head and couldn't help laughing too.Lorenzo winked at him: "Of course, you are much handsomer than him."

There was a silence.Giovanni tried to ignore the ambiguous undercurrent in his tone.He thought Lorenzo was more drunk than he thought.

He coughed lightly as a cover-up: "Did I bother you?"

The Duke shook his head. "Well done," he said, "this conversation should have been over long ago. If you'd been late, Strozzi would have gotten in - I was going to have a talk with him, but he's had too much to drink tonight." Drunk." He frowned.

"Perhaps some ladies."

"You mean Miss Patsy? I saw you standing together." Lorenzo shook his head and smiled. "Is this your reason for interrupting us?—Actually you didn't give in too much. Noticed Sif Is Mrs. Erza dead, the one dressed as Minerva? She is watching you secretly, didn't you notice?"

He suddenly moved closer to Giovanni: "She has been looking at you with that... admiring gaze."

"How do you know?"

Lorenzo looked back at him.

"Because me too."

The wind shakes the boxwood leaves and rustles like raindrops, and even Amphion's piano cannot be more beautiful than it at this moment.They came beyond the radiance of the torches, and the stars reappeared, high in the dark blue sky far away.Giovanni stared at him.Starlight flooded Lorenzo's eyes, and they also stared at him without blinking.

He prayed it wasn't a joke.

"Are you drunk?" he asked in a low voice, and found that his voice was almost trembling, "Your Highness?"

"It depends on whether you want to hear the truth or the lie."

Giovanni hesitated for a while: "I'll take you back to rest."

"..." Lorenzo looked at him and said almost sighing, "Idiot."

He felt his heart beating unevenly, like a cursed pendulum, or like a mad rabbit.A playful couple passed by them, and Lorenzo took him by the wrist and led him to a hedge.The tall shrubs built in the shape of a maze are also a fashion led by the King of France. Now the surrounding hedges provide them with a natural barrier. They tacitly pass through the layers of green walls, just like animals hiding in a cave when it rains.Neither of them said a word until standing in the center of the maze.

The hustle and bustle was completely screened out, only the stars were present, falling silently beside them.

"Sometimes, I don't understand what you're waiting for," Lorenzo said. "If you have any concerns—please tell me, now is the time."

He stared down at Lorenzo, and Lorenzo looked back at him.

"Bianca calls you Augustus," he said after a pause, "is Giulio your Tiberius?"

Lorenzo stared at him for a moment.

"What do you think?"

He said the answer as if it had been in his mind for a long time: "Giuliano."

Lorenzo looked at him, looking helpless and relieved: "Should I praise your cleverness?"

It's not hard to guess.Giuliano, who moves strangely late at night, his extraordinary love for little Giulio, Giulio's eye-catching hair color... It's not hard to imagine a clichéd love story.An unmarried young man fell in love with a noble lady in the city, but her husband did not hinder him because of the power of the young family or anything else; because of the church and the law, they could not marry.So the young, childless eldest brother adopted their illegitimate son, concealed the identity of the child, and made him his heir.

"Does Madame Orsini agree with your decision?"

"Kate? Yes." Lorenzo shook his head. "She knows what kind of person I am, so she doesn't care about children. She allows me to have the relationship with her that I want, and I have never entered her room." , she's like my sister—of course, she's only 15 and doesn't even know what it means to be married and to be a wife. And before she realizes it..."

He drew a breath, and Giovanni took his hand.The gaze he stared at Lorenzo gradually softened, as if something had sloughed off from his heart, like removing an old scar.

"Are you asking for my loyalty?" After a pause, Lorenzo looked at him. "Now I answer your previous question, even though it pissed me off: there won't be anyone else."

"What I mean is: I'm not going to marry anyone again. I've had a wretched wife and don't have to marry to avoid speculation; I've got Giulio and don't have to make 'legitimate offspring' ’. My Giulio will have no stepmother, no mistress in the Medici Palace, even if my line is extinct.”

"What about you, then?" he went on, looking intently at Giovanni, "before you answer me, think carefully. This time, once you have passed through this narrow gate, I will not allow you to back off. "

He saw Giovanni curl his lips.The black-haired youth smiled, a stretched and relaxed smile that had never been seen before.The breeze brushed the broken hair on his forehead, and he stretched out his left hand, holding it between the two of them.

"I ask for your loyalty precisely because," he looked at Lorenzo quietly, "—you already have my eternal loyalty."

He spreads his hands.A dark blue ribbon was lying quietly in his palm.

Lorenzo looked at him.

—Five years ago, after a chaotic night, he woke up with a hangover in the morning and found that he had lost a hair tie.The headache completely prevented him from remembering where he had left it, which was a trivial matter.It wasn't until years later that someone recovered it, along with other things he thought were lost.It turned out that those things were the same as it, still fresh as new, like a miracle.

As if speechless, Lorenzo opened his mouth, but did not say a word.He stared at the headband for a moment, then looked up.

"Oh," he said only two words, "Joe."

The mask landed on the green grass with a soft sound.Not knowing who approached first, they pulled each other towards them forcefully, pressing their lips against each other's lips, like sparks falling on firewood.Without the need for Ariadne's ball of thread,[6] they hurried out of the labyrinth and through the crowd back to the palace.The moment they came to the shadow, they held each other's hand, and neither of them let go.The door was pushed open recklessly, and they entered Lorenzo's room hugging each other, and fell onto the big velvet bed.Lorenzo took the headband and wrapped it around the eyes of the crucifix above the bed.

They looked at each other.Giovanni felt Lorenzo's lips press his again.And so the kingdom of heaven came.

The author has something to say:

[1] Augustus: That is, Octavian, the Roman emperor, turned Rome from a republic into an empire.The purple fringe toga below was the costume of the elders in ancient Rome.Livia is his ambitious step-wife.

[2] Daphne: The daughter of the river god in Greek mythology, who turned into a laurel tree to escape the pursuit of Apollo.

[3] Amphion: A musician in ancient Greek mythology. It is said that his piano sound can move stubborn stones.

[4] Tiberius: Stepson of Augustus, the next Roman emperor.

[5] Ariadne's ball of thread: once guided the ancient Greek hero Theseus out of the maze.

I finally wrote the plot I wanted to write the most (although I didn't write the effect I imagined at all), this article can be pitted (x