A thunderous crack filled the air. It was the sound of dozens of cannons firing in unison. The Navy of the Holy See had sailed up the River Nile, and began a withering bombardment on the walls of Cairo.
Pope Miltiades IV looked out at his ships. It was a thing of beauty, the bombardment. A dozen and two ships, all holding several cannons, all firing at once. The sound of the cannonballs was music to the Pope’s ears, the crack of muskets as harmonious to him as a Catholic Hymn. He raised his Papal flag high over his head, and shouted at the top of his Lungs, “Cease Fire!” The bombardment stopped. “We will give them time to lick their wounds before beginning again,” he said to his trusted friend & guard, Armend Brantley, “Send in the negotiators. The less of God’s Children that die while taking this city, the better.”
“Right away, your Holiness.” Armand replied.
18 hours past. Then, in the dead of night, a shadowy figure crept from the Gates of Cairo and stealthily entered the Pope’s encampment.
Well, he tried to, anyway.
“Who goes there?” Armend shouted at the intruder.
“It is I, one of the Negotiators, don’t shoot!” The man said, “The talks broke down, & my companions were slaughtered by these barbaric Egyptians. I just barely escaped.”
Armend took the poor fellow to the Pope’s tent. As he heard of the horror’s the man had endured, Pope Miltiades IV’s face grew steadily harder. Finally, he signaled the man to stop, and stood up. “The leaders of Cairo are beyond salvation. Indeed, I am quite convinced that they have entered into a pact with the Devil himself.” Here he stepped out of the tent and sent out orders for his men to be roused from sleep & assembled in the center of the camp. “We must assault the city, bombard it with everything we have,” he said. “We have sent out offers of a peaceful annexation, and they spat in our faces! Go forth, men, & liberate the unfortunate citizens of Cairo from their cruel overlords!”
The Siege of Cairo took another month to complete. But Papal forces finally took the city, & with one of the greatest cities on the River Nile firmly in the grasp of Pope Miltiades IV, the Holy See’s control of Lower Egypt was no longer in doubt
