“I am doing my best.”
“It is crucial that you understand the background to what I will next say, so I make no apology for a lesson in history.”
The Cardinal’s hands shook, his teeth chattered, and his whole body trembled in a frenzy of fear and excitement as intense as anything he had known.
“The Curia of the Catholic Church invests you, Albornoz, as its Papal Vicar General. Under this authority you have the right to raise and deploy armed forces as you deem necessary, all with the goal of recovering the lost domains.”
The cleric was completely unsuspecting of this development, but he at once grasped the opportunity rather than the penance of such a mission.
"I will be a general commanding my army, tasked with reinstating the Church’s former possessions through what I know is right —
