The Duke of Normandy was known to be dismissive of calling his eldest son Socks when he was angry, because he had not inherited his height and was as short as his mother Matilda. On this foggy morning, Robert the Sock was watching his father's army in the Frankish castle, and he could even see a Norman general on the opposite side slowly mounted his horse, adjusted the reins with one hand, and then made the horse make a semi-whirling motion, levitating like a ghost in the direction of the smoke-emitting village.

"The hooligans have torn down all our watchtowers, and that burning village and hollowed-out cemetery are their handiwork, are we really doing nothing?" Viscount Gautier's conception of war was derived almost entirely from poetry, and he envisioned a great battle under the ochre-coloured walls of Troy, where ancient heroes with sturdy shin armor wore wolf skins and wild boar tooth helmets, playing between life and death.

"The horseback lord who just passed away is the brother of the Earl of Ieul, Bishop Hugg of Lissy, and you may not know that his weapon once wounded King Harold of England himself." Robert said calmly, as if talking about an unrelated ancient matter, "I believe that your Excellency will soon find that such a warrior is very difficult to kill, and that opposite us, there are at least ten princes like the Bishop of Lischel, who have attended the Council of Lillebonne, and who have participated in the plot to invade England, do you think we should now swing our swords at them?" ”

After this reminder, Viscount Gautier, who recalled the prestige of the Normans for decades, couldn't help but shudder, and his broadsword also seemed a little dim, reflecting a black light that did not belong to this world.

The Count of Flanders, on the other side, had no interest in leaving the fortified castle to fight the enemy in the wilderness, he just snapped his fingers, and a fat squire pulled out a piece of parchment from his walrus-like arm like a magic spell.

"Lord Gautier, King Philip's letter mentions that his reinforcements will soon arrive as soon as we march into Beauvais, and now that the Normans are in front of us, where is the king?" The Count forced his gaze at the slightly embarrassed Viscount, who was stared at with chills on his back, and finally had to reply: "Your Majesty is assembling men and horses in Compiègne, and then you will have to join up with Soisson's army, and will soon lead the army to arrive, please do not worry." ”

The Count then put away the letter with satisfaction: "In this case, even if the Duke of Normandy wants to pull horse manure at the foot of the walls of Rebelua until the king arrives, we will not take the initiative. ”

The siege went on like this, and the Normans knew very well the fortification of the fortress, but they had to continue the siege here, because Reberuwa was like a sharp knife piercing the throat of Normandy, and at the same time sheltered the entire Beauvais region, and with the strategy of the Normans, they naturally would not go deep into the enemy territory before pulling out this nail, and let the thousands of Flemish elites threaten their rear.

"Rebelua is such a beautiful castle." One day, Count Io sighed casually in the tent, but he was not alone in the tent, and a man in a gray cloak quickly replied, "If you make up your mind, you can get any castle you want." ”

"Who can guarantee that, Robert?" Count Io scoffed as if he had heard some joke, "With all due respect, his father, even if he is old, is not something he can handle. Moreover, I'm not the Otto guy, although the territory is good, I have to live to enjoy it. ”

"In that case, why did you come to this place?" There was a mockery in the man's voice.

"I just don't want to miss this farce, haha, what a father and son." The Earl of Iu had evidently not forgotten the old grudge that Duke William had escaped by leaving him at St. Albans, and his tone was filled with schadenfreude.

"Then keep waiting, I think, the wind is about to change."

Everyone was waiting, Duke William was waiting for Rebeluwa's supplies to run out, and then surrendered on his own initiative; The Count of Flanders and his nephew were waiting for Cape's army to come and relieve the siege, because the life of the siege was boring, not to mention the chronic bleeding caused by the occasional fighting. However, the first to lose patience was William Lufus, the son of the Duke of Normandy, a young man who could not bear to stare at his brother across a wall, and who was eager to capture him himself and show everyone who was the true leader of the Normans. His face was red, his hair was unkempt, and for days William Lufus had been planning it, and he had even gathered a group of young knights with strong blood to launch a massive assault on the enemy's walls.

When the stars disappeared into the sky again, William Luforth was the first to appear outside the camp, and he quickly spotted the flag in front of him.

On this day, when the rising sun revealed the banner of King Saint-Denis on the opposite side, and the point of the spear that radiated was held high above the city, when the Franks on the opposite side were heard shouting "For the king", no one in the Norman camp had any doubts that the king of France had apparently arrived.

"Your Majesty, you brought these people with you?" The Flemish Count in the castle was clearly not happy, and King Philip suddenly appeared near the city wall last night, with only a dozen knights by his side, and even a war horse had a cut on the face of the reins and needed immediate medical attention.

"That's enough, and Charlemagne's Paladin is no more than that." The King of France seemed extremely confident, but unfortunately this sentiment did not spread, Philip did not have a reputation for battle, and Count Robert himself had defeated the camp of the King of France and captured the banner of the "Golden Flame" of Saint-Denis.

"If I were to hunt wolves, I would lay the lambs on the flat ground, and lay an ambush on the mastiffs with sharp teeth at the downwind, and then wait for the wolves to arrive, and our knights and hounds will gallop through the wilderness until only bloody fur and stripped flesh remain." Philip's explanation upset the Count of Flanders, who apparently meant to use him as bait.

In the camp of the Normans, because of the arrival of the French king, the controversy finally broke out, the nobles did not think that there was any hope of taking the castle, many began to ask for the withdrawal of troops, and the Duke himself showed hesitation for the first time: his supplies were also depleted quickly, and since the arrival of Philip's main force, the forces of the two sides had become equal, and the Normans were not as good as the enemy after several months of siege and fighting.

The Norman nobles did not think that they would lose to each other, but in the current situation, as long as they could not conquer Rebeluwa, the Normans could not improve their situation, which was also the reason for the dilemma of Duke William. And in the midst of such doubts, the direction of the wind finally changed subtly.

"Now you can rest assured, this time it is not Robert of Normandy or the Count of Flanders, but His Majesty the King of France himself—as for the Duke, if we do it right, William will probably die here." The man in the cloak smiled triumphantly, and in the light of the fire, his face was revealed: Drogo, the exiled Flemish lord, was now confident, and the parchment scroll that his squire had brought back lay on the table, and the royal insignia on the lacquer was broken, but it was enough to prove everything to the Count of Iou, and soon he would regain his possessions in Normandy, when even Robert the Sock would not be able to disobey the will of the King of France.