Candle flames flickered, kindling the fragrance of whale oil that coiled through the great hall. In this era, the Portuguese colony in the Azores had already been established for more than thirty years. Whale hunting, relying on the islands as its base, had also begun to grow active in the surrounding seas. An endless stream of whale oil came from the ocean and flowed into the court at Sintra.
"The spices of the East have this same fragrance, only far stronger!"
John II closed his eyes and lightly sniffed the rich ambergris scent for a while. Even with the wealth of the King of Portugal, he could not, like the Mexica Alliance of the New World, burn spices that were exorbitantly expensive in the Catholic world as Divine Smoke. That scene, even just imagining it, made one's flesh ache.
"The East. The East!."
Bartolomeu Dias gazed and gazed toward the east, his eyes filled with intense longing.
The palace fell quiet for a time, and the two men remained silent for a long while, their thoughts surging. Only after quite some time did John II open his eyes and say with a smile.
"Dias, India and Seres are still far away. What lies close before our eyes right now are the disputes of the Holy See and the Two Monarchs' Granada War!"
"The disputes of the Holy See?"
Hearing this, Dias was slightly startled. He had been away from the Kingdom of Portugal for two years, and truly knew nothing of the Holy See's present situation.
"Mm. The current pope, Innocent VIII, is displaying his weakness with perfect clarity. The King of Naples, Ferdinand I, has twice marched troops to Rome's very gates and pressured the pope."
At this point, John II's eyes flickered, as though he were weighing something.