Chapter 107 Where is Home?

"What about the rewards for the walking competition?" Horn looked disappointed.

"I can't walk anymore. I don't want to do that." Frick narrowed his eyes in a desperate manner.

After giving Chilvis a look in front of him and asking them to take their people and go ahead, Horn squatted down and whispered:

"This race walking competition is a team competition. If you don't walk, then no one is walking."

"How is that possible?" Frick panted. "This isn't a real race. If we separate, we separate. It won't affect anything."

Horn's words of persuasion were instantly swallowed.

"You, what are you talking about? I don't understand." Horn forced an ugly smile.

"Your Majesty, stop pretending. We've known it for a long time. We old guys have seen more salt than you have walked." An old woman said in a hoarse voice.

The sunlight was a little strong, and it felt warm on people's bodies, but Horn felt a little dizzy.

Frick sat on a big rock by the roadside, like an old man sitting at his doorstep in autumn, his face full of wrinkles, his legs crossed, freehand and simple.

Hundreds of elderly people found a place to sit down, just like sitting in the house leisurely after work.

"I, I don't understand...you guys..." Horn's mouth was stuck and he couldn't speak.

"We are not that group of young people. They really believe in you, but we old guys know that you are not the one. We just want to follow you." Another old man continued.

Horn squatted there like a statue: "Now that you know, why don't you leave?"

None of the old men responded to Horn's words; they just sat there lazily, as if basking in the sun.

After waiting for a long while, only Frick looked up at Horn and said, "Won't it be a burden to the children if we go any further?"

"But, but..."

"Your Majesty Horn, do you know that I have met the Pope?" Frick abruptly started a new topic.

"Back then, I traveled thousands of miles from the Thousand River Valley to the Holy See City. The poems I composed spread throughout the Holy See City within a few days."

"Pope Johnny VIII was so kind. He received us gently, put us in a comfortable little hotel, and promised to give me an explanation."

"You tell me, you tell me, the hotel arranged by the Pope is located next to the Pope's Palace. It's right next to the Pope's Palace, right next to it!"

"How could a rogue thug climb in through the window? How could it be possible?!"

Frick looked as if he was about to break his teeth, and he was shaking all over, and Horn couldn't tell whether it was Parkinson's or anger.

"In that hotel, that night, my adopted son, Little Reddy, was forced into a water tank and drowned by a scoundrel who suddenly appeared."

"I went to stop them, but they pried open my mouth and poisoned my throat with paint. I can no longer sing."

"Your Majesty, after eighteen years, I have lost my family and children again."

The chirping of birds echoed in the puddles, and the sound of horse hooves could be heard faintly in the distance.

In the sunshine, a few butterflies rested on the flowers, their eyes fluttering, staring at Frick who was pulling at his collar.

Frick thrust his hand into his clothes, and grasped the ruler which Madeleine had given him, and held it tightly.

"Your Majesty, you are a good Pope."

“You fed us, you fed us fat and meat, you clothed us with clothes without holes, and you washed our dirty faces.”

"You wear the same clothes as us, eat the same food as us, and you refuse to ride a horse but use it to carry the wounded."

"Why don't you abandon us? You let us, even the useless old people, live with dignity."

Half kneeling in front of Horn, Frick gave the squatting Horn a big hug.

"I have always been thinking, if the Holy See had a good pope like you, my family, my little Reddy, would not have to die."

"We have been waiting for such a good pope for a lifetime. Our fathers waited for a lifetime, our grandfathers waited for a lifetime, and we don't want our children to wait any longer."

Horn squatted there, just like the moment when Dange spoke to him earlier, he seemed to have aphasia and couldn't utter a word.

"Your Majesty, this hilt is for you." Frick took out a hilt with a guard from his arms.

"The hilt was originally meant for my own son. He listened to me sing heroic epics so many times that he wanted to be a dragon-slaying warrior and demanded a sword."

"I couldn't persuade him, so I went to buy him a sword handle and told him that I would buy him a sword blade when he came of age, but he wouldn't be able to use it anymore."

Frick thrust the hilt of his sword into the cloth bag at his waist.

Horn was stunned.

Frick pinched Horn's shoulders and helped Horn up. He seemed to be smiling: "Your Majesty, I beg you, please don't let our children die in front of us old guys."

Frick forced Horn to face forward and patted him on the back: "Let's go, walk faster."

Horn took four steps forward subconsciously, but he could not stretch out his legs to take the fifth step.

"Keep moving forward and don't look back!" Frick shouted at Horn's back.

After standing there for three or five seconds, Horn continued to take steps. He walked faster and faster, and finally left here almost as if running away.

Until Horn's figure disappeared at the end of the road, Frick still stood there, not knowing what he was thinking.

"Frick, don't just stand there." "Crack, brother."

"How about it? Take a bite to give yourself some courage."

A big-boned old man pulled out a jug of wine and half a roasted water vole from his pocket.

Looking at the wine in front of him, Frick smiled: "No more drinking, I'm sober now."

Frick turned down the wine that was offered to him and looked up at the blue sky, so high and so far away.

Having not sung for decades, Frick suddenly wanted to sing a few lines, and he was a little afraid that he had forgotten them.

"I hurt myself again, today."

Amid the chirping of countless birds in the woods, Frick's hoarse singing voice passed through the clouds and reached the sky he was looking up at.

"I want to know if I still have the energy to feel,

Concentrate on feeling this pain,
That’s the only real thing.”

Beating his thighs to keep the beat, Frick sang the songs he had heard when he was a minstrel in his broken voice.

The once strong voice had long since become hoarse due to paint, tears and alcohol.

Shaking his skinny body, Frick stood up on the big rock, squinting his eyes and spreading his arms, as if he had been on the tavern stage.

At that time, his little son would stand behind him and beat the drums for him, and his wife would play the flute beside him.

In that tavern as warm as summer, day after day, it seemed like it would last forever.

Until the day the tavern owner pulled the bodies of the mother and daughter back from the church on a cart.

"The needle stung the wound,

It's like the old, familiar sting."

Frick, whose hair smelled of alcohol, was sober for the first time.

He could feel the ruler in his arms, glowing hot.

Jeanne d'Arc was a good place and Madeleine was a good child, but he could never go there again and would never see her again.

"And try to make all this disappear and never happen again...

But I just remember everything.”

Putting his hands down from his rib-like chest, Frick sang the last line of the lyrics again in a low voice.

“But I just remember everything!”

As the song rang out, the ground began to shake, and the grass leaves began to vibrate. Amid the sound of armor rubbing against each other, the smell of blood filled the air.

At the end of the road, a group of cavalrymen in silver armor appeared, with tall knights sitting on tall war horses.

Their saddles were embroidered with delicate patterns on the edges, and their robes were embroidered with the family crest of the Prince of Condé.

The war horses spewed hot air from their mouths ferociously, and along with the masters on their backs, they turned their cold and majestic eyes.

The narrow path was filled with panting people and horses.

The tall knight in the lead wore a dark grey robe over his silver armor, and the edges of his Milanese shoulder armor were inlaid with gold that shone brightly in the sun.

Standing quietly in front of the old men, he ordered the knights to hold their chins high.

Booloo, who was at the front, turned his head and said a few words to Cléante.

Cleon nodded, walked past the crowd, and came to the group of broken old men.

Looking at this group of old men and women blocking the road as if chatting at the entrance of the village, Cléante suddenly felt a little nervous, but he still calmed down and shouted arrogantly:

"Go away! The knight is kind-hearted and doesn't want to bother with you old guys. Get out of the way and go home."

Frick stood up from the ground, propped up by his spear, and staggered to the front of Cleonte.

"Go home, the Knight has forgiven you."

He held the spear straight, but it kept shaking with his body.

"You finally managed to survive, why are you just standing there? Is this something you have no right to interfere with? Go home early... Are you crazy?"

Taking several steps back, covering his pierced ear, Cleonte screamed at Frick.

"Family?"

Retracting the spear, Frick gritted his teeth and laughed, his whole body trembling like a lame old wolf: "Where the hell do I have a home?"

Passing by the stunned Cléante, Frick and the old men stumbled forward with their spears in hand, charging towards the Imperial Knights who were sitting high up.

It was just like the warriors charging towards the dragon that he had sung thousands of times.

"Where do we have a home?!"

(End of this chapter)