Chapter 83 The second day in Old Town

On the third day after arriving in Old Town, Linde and Vilas arrived at the Starry Cathedral in Old Town early in the morning.

The Starry Cathedral is located on the cliff at the mouth of the Mead River, across the water from the Academy City on the other side of the river and the towering tower on the Conquest Island. It forms one of the three landmark buildings that dominate the old town.

This is the starting point of the religious area of ​​the old town, extending from here to the end of the dock area. There are the Sailors' Church, the Lords' Church, the Seven Temples, the House of the Virgin, and exotic temples brought by sailors and merchants, etc. Religious buildings.

The entire religious area wraps up the dock area. Anyone who returns from the sea will immediately go to the corresponding shrines, churches and temples to pray, thanking the gods for allowing them to return to land safely, and leaving the old city by water. People in the town will also pray in these religious places, praying that they will have smooth sailing.

As the religious center of Westeros, even though the Starry Cathedral is no longer the residence of the Archbishop, its influence has not weakened much, and because it is far away from the center of power in King's Landing, it has not been adulterated. Among those secular rights, this place has become a holy place for the devout monks and believers in the Church of the Seven Gods.

Because of this, the religious laws here are also very strict, almost the same as in the school city. Knights with swords like Linde are not allowed to enter the church and can only stay in the square outside the church.

Because the monks of the temple had made arrangements in advance, there was no one else in the Stars Church except the monks who accompanied Vilas in praying. Even the believers were arranged to other churches. The Stars Cathedral serves Vilas alone all day long, which shows that the Stars Cathedral attaches great importance to Vilas.

Whether Vilas himself is a devout Seventh God cultist is still open to question, but he appears to be a very devout Seventh God cultist.

Take this visit to the Starry Temple to pray, for example. He took off all his gorgeous clothes in the towering tower and put on the robes of the lowest priests of the Church of the Seven Gods. With bare feet, he started from the entrance of the Blackstone Fortress. Crossing the arch bridge, entering the dock area, and reaching the Starry Cathedral, throughout this not-so-short journey, he always followed a very ancient monk ritual of the Church of the Seven Gods, reciting a sentence from the "Seven Star Bible" every seven steps he took. "Chapter prayers in ".

Almost all the people in Old Town were believers in the Church of the Seven Gods. When they saw that Willas, the heir to the Reach and the future Duke of Highgarden, was so pious, they were all excited. They stood on both sides of the road and accompanied Victoria. Lars recited prayers in a low voice, and the scene was like welcoming a saint.

It wasn't until Villas was welcomed into the church by the bishop of the Starry Cathedral, and the church door slowly closed, that they dispersed with lingering interest.

This prayer meeting will not end until the first ray of sunlight shines on the seven-pointed star holy symbol on the top of the Starry Temple tomorrow morning. Before that, Vilas will stay in the Starry Temple.

Lind divided his knight guards into two groups and guarded several street entrances and exits in the Stars Temple Square. Others let them rest in a room next to the Stars Temple that was specially used to take care of poor believers.

After that, he asked Jon to go to the camp outside the city to prepare for leaving Old Town tomorrow. There was no need to stay outside the Starry Cathedral.

Although Lind knew very well that Vilas was safe in the Starry Cathedral, he still checked around the Starry Cathedral, then found a place to sit down near the prayer room, leaned his back against the wall, concentrated, and passed Superhearing to listen to the movement on the other side of the wall to determine what is going on inside the sanctuary.

Glory replaced Linde, walking around the Starry Temple from time to time to check what was going on around him.

Everything went smoothly and boringly, and the whole day passed like this. As the sun entered the sunset sea in the west, the sky gradually darkened. Municipal workers in the old town lit the braziers on various roads, lighting up the entire old town.

Linde, who had been sitting on the wall outside the prayer room for a day, listened to the prayers through eavesdropping. He could almost memorize the entire prayers of the Seven Star Bible. What impressed him was that Vilas actually Tiandu prayed silently on the other side of the wall, even though the monks around him had left, he did not stop.

If he hadn't known Vilas's attitude towards the gods during his conversations with Vilas these days, he might have thought that Vilas was an extremely devout believer of the Seven Gods, just like being enshrined as a saint by the Church of the Seven Gods. Baelor the Blessed Targaryen.

In fact, Willas probably wanted to make the Church of the Seven Gods think that he was someone like Baelor Targaryen, so that they could give him additional support when he became the Duke of Highgarden in the future.

You must know that in the Reach, even though the Church of the Seven Gods has no armed force, their influence among the lower class people is still extremely strong. Winning over the Church of the Seven Gods is equivalent to winning over the lower class people.

These are the two things that Willas had decided to accomplish before he came to Oldtown. One was to win over the school city, gain its support, and gain influence over the upper echelons of the Reach. The other was to win over the Seven. The Church of God controls the influence at the bottom.

However, things didn't seem to go well for the school yesterday. However, the school later sent three precious books to show its goodwill to Vilas, which also represented another neutral attitude of the school.

As for the situation at the Stars Church today, the situation is much better. Judging from the attitude of the monks at the Stars Church, things seem to be going very smoothly, because Lind heard the bishop of the Stars Church outside the prayer room and thought that Vilas could not hear the sound. In this place, he praised Willas's piety to his monks more than once, and also used hints to indicate that the Starry Temple needs the support of a powerful and powerful person before it can continue to fight against the Great Temple of Baelor in King's Landing.

After nightfall, Linde stopped snooping around the church and returned to the front square of the church.

At this time, Jon ran over from the camp outside the city and informed Linde of some conditions in the camp. After hearing this, Linde couldn't help but frown, and felt a faint sense of uneasiness in his heart.

It turned out that the aristocratic children and knight officers in charge of military affairs thought that they would go to sea tomorrow and would be floating on the sea for almost half a month, so they thought they should relax tonight, so they all ran away We arrived at the brothel and tavern in the old town, ready to play until dawn.

All these knight officers have left the military camp. Now there are only some knight attendants and low-level officers without authority in the military camp. There is no officer in charge in the military camp.

Although Old Town was the territory of the Hightowers and there were no enemies around, Linde thought it was inappropriate to have the entire army command leave the barracks, and he also had a vague sense of uneasiness, thinking that something might happen.

Therefore, before entering the Starry Temple as Vilas, he immediately granted himself part of the army command authority under special circumstances, signed a letter of authorization, and then ordered Jon to return to the military camp with ten knight guards and some ordinary soldiers. Let them take charge of the army for the time being until the knightly officers return.

A knight guard asked worriedly: "Lord Linde, will this cause you trouble? You have already exceeded your authority by doing this."

"As an officer, leaving the military camp without permission from the commander-in-chief has already violated military law." Linde responded with a cold face: "It would be fine if nothing happened. They just shut up. I won’t be too nosy, but if they dare to talk, I will let them know how I enforce military law in Tengshi Town.”

Seeing that Linde had made a decision in his mind, the knight guards did not say anything more. Although in their opinion, Linde's identity was not enough to compete with the knight officers who had great nobles and great lords standing behind them, but they still I vaguely felt that if those knight officers really blamed Linde for overstepping his authority and sending someone to take over the army, those knight officers would definitely suffer in the end.

Time passed little by little, and soon it was late at night. Except for the areas where the pubs and brothels were located, most other places in the old town were quiet at this moment. Everything seemed very peaceful, just like last night. .

However, the uneasiness in Linde's heart did not disappear, but became more and more intense.

Perhaps feeling something in his heart, he walked to the cliff beside the Starry Temple Square and looked in the direction of Whispering Bay.

Because there were clouds in the sky, there was no moonlight, and the sea was pitch black. Normal people could not see anything at all. However, Linde's extraordinary vision was not among those of normal people. He could vaguely see many things moving on the sea.

After discovering that he could not completely see the things moving on the sea, he immediately shared it with Glory's vision. Through Glory's thermal imaging vision, he could see clearly that there were hundreds of small long ships on the sea moving at extremely fast speeds. Sailing on the waters of Whispering Bay, the direction of sailing is towards the dock area of ​​Old Town.

However, the towering tower did not seem to notice these hundreds of small long ships, so it did not sound the alarm. This was obviously wrong.

Lind was almost certain that the hundreds of ships were definitely pirates, and the only force that could gather so many pirates was the Ironborn of the Iron Islands.

Lind didn't think much, and immediately broke away from the vision sharing of Glory, walked quickly to the knight guards under his command, and ordered with a serious look: "The pirates of the Ironborn have come towards the old town, and these pirates have not been found at the Towering Tower. , so no alarm was issued. We can't wait here for the Ironborn to land. You two immediately go to the beacon tower of the city hall and light the alarm torch. You two immediately go to the Tower of Towers and explain the situation to Lord Leighton. You You and I will go outside the city immediately and ask Jon and the others to lead the army into Old Town and cooperate with the Old Town garrison to resist the Ironborn. As for you two, immediately notify the Old Town garrison and ask them to rush to the dock for defense as soon as possible."

Although Linde issued the order, the surrounding knight guards were stunned in place, looking at Linde with no intention of executing the order.

It's no wonder that these knight guards behaved like this, because they didn't notice the Ironborn pirates that Lind mentioned at all, and the old town was also quiet. Everyone felt a little baffled by Lind's sudden move.

"Do you want to disobey my order as the captain of the guards? Or have you forgotten Lord Vilas's instructions when entering the Starry Temple?" Lind was not angry at the reaction of these knight guards, but just emphasized his own authority.

After Lind's reminder, the knight guards also remembered that Vilas did ask them not to disobey Lind's orders, but they felt that the orders Vilas said were only for protecting safety, and Lind's current actions were too much. Going too far, especially asking troops from outside the city to enter the city, is simply an invasion of Old Town. If it is not done well, it may cause a breakdown in the relationship between the Tyrell family and the Hightower family.

Seeing that these people still did not carry out his orders, Linde did not continue to persuade them. Instead, he walked to the door of the Stars Temple and knocked hard on the door several times.

The main door did not open, but the window of the small door next to it was opened, revealing the face of a monk, looking at Linde doubtfully.

"I have something important to see Lord Vilas." Linde said solemnly.

The monk frowned and said in a deep voice: "Master Vilas is praying. According to the ritual, we have to wait until tomorrow morning..."

Lind interrupted the monk's words and said very directly: "Thousands of ironmen will land at the pier in a while and loot the old town. The Starry Temple is too close to the pier. Lord Vilas will be very worried here." Danger."

The monk was stunned for a moment, and then looked at the quiet old town outside. He didn't look like he would be attacked at all, and showed an expression that said, "Are you a fool?"

"This is not a decision you can make..." Linde continued.

"Lord Linde." Just a peaceful voice came from the church, and then the bishop of the Starry Church appeared behind the small window and said to Linde: "Lord Linde, please believe Lord Vilas. It’s safe here. Even if the Ironborn you mentioned do land and attack Old Town, nothing will happen to us here. It is impossible for the Ironborn to destroy the gate of the temple, so the Ironborn are really here, Linde You adults are the ones who need to pay attention to your safety.”

"I understand, Lord Bishop." Linde did not continue to persuade him. He knew very well that for these religious people, completing religious rituals was more important than their lives.

Since everything that needs to be done has been done, there is no need for Linde to waste any more words. He walked to the door and stood there, waiting for the subsequent developments.

Glory also seemed to sense Lind's somewhat annoyed mood and became active. He walked around the square a few times and then got into the shadows of the surrounding buildings, seemingly disappearing.

The knight guards were puzzled when they saw Linde's somewhat crazy behavior. They looked at each other. Several of the attentive knight guards walked to where Linde was standing just now and looked at the sea of ​​Whispering Bay. In the past, it was a pity that their eyes could not see the specific situation of the sea at all, they only saw a dead darkness.

"How about we send people outside the city first to inform people outside the city. If something happens here, people outside the city can respond in time." One of the knight guards may think that Linde is not that casual. The person who issued the order to overstep tried to suggest.

Everyone thought that this was also a solution, so they asked the two people Linde had designated before to immediately ride out of the city.

About ten minutes later, a fire broke out in the dock area that instantly attracted everyone's attention, and bursts of shouts came from the dock area.

The eight knight guards outside the Starry Temple had a look of surprise on their faces. They immediately ran to the edge of the square and looked towards the dock area.

Through the light produced by a ignited ship in the dock area, they saw hundreds of ships densely gathered on the sea in the dock area. These ships were filled with ironmen and they were rushing towards the dock area. Many of them were The few ships had already rushed to the pier, and a large number of ironborn pirates rushed from the ships and rushed towards their prey.