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As a woman from the twentieth century, even with some knowledge of history, she couldn’t fully understand this complex situation.
The first issue was the current political layout of Europe, or more specifically, Italy.
At present, the Habsburg dynasty was in power, and the Holy Roman Empire was weakening and fragmenting.
When she was first interrogated by the lord, her response was actually both correct and wrong.
The situation was urgent, and she didn’t have much time to consider everything, so her answer wasn’t fully certain.
In fact, Milan, Florence, Prague, Genoa, and other regions all belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, as one of its vassal states.
But it was both correct and wrong because her statement was, in effect, saying, "I am from the Roman Curia."
The Roman Curia, up until now, didn’t have a fixed institution, and its central hub shifted with the change of power.
So, they assumed she was from the current seat of the Roman Curia—Vienna.
In a way, she had unwittingly gotten part of it right.
The Holy Roman Empire was like a sliced-up pizza, with city-states each having their own rulers, and the emperor himself was nothing more than a figurehead.
—This was not a good thing.
For those in power and ambitious individuals, division and instability represented opportunities, but for someone like Hedy, who longed for peace, it was a potential disaster.
She remained calm, constantly gathering information from various sources and accounts.
It turned out that things were progressing much faster than she had imagined.
In the first year after she suddenly "awoke" from her haze, Florence erupted into a bloody Massacre.
That rebellion led to the hanging of all members of the Pazzi family at the windows of the Doge’s Palace. Botticelli even painted a bloody scene on the side wall of the city hall to warn all the citizens.
The riot caused Lorenzo to lose his brother, and it also made him a target of Pope Sixtus IV—
Among the executed rebels was the Archbishop of Pisa, and the entire Church was enraged, forcing Florence to immediately surrender Lorenzo.
The Pope confiscated their family’s wealth, threatening to strip all the members of the Florence court of their church privileges and seize the city’s ecclesiastical authority.
At the time, both the monks and the citizens of the city rose up in protest, and there were even armed conflicts.
But the problem was that the powerful Kingdom of Naples openly supported the Roman Pope, and the only countries providing partial support during the war were Milan and France, both trading nations.
In a critical moment, Lorenzo went alone to Naples and, throughhis own efforts, persuaded the enemy and negotiated a treaty.
The Pope lost his strongest supporter and had no choice but to pretend not to notice and move on.
After hearing the full story, Hedy felt a great deal of complexity within her.
As people often said, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.
Now, France, considering its trade relations, was willing to help when Florence was in trouble.
But twenty years later, it was still France that stabbed them in the back and invaded.
Close allies could become backstabbers—all for the sake of profit.
After much thought, Hedy decided to talk to the lord.
