After returning home from the sea, Edgar convened a meeting of the wise men in Westminster, and unlike previous years, most of the nobles who returned were young people who had not experienced Hastings, which may have avoided a layer of embarrassment, especially since Eustace, Earl of Bologne, who had fought with the English in Hastings, was also present at the court.

Nowadays, the English people are more and more interested in overseas careers, but the nobles from the mainland are more interested in the management of their territories, and the Count of Boulogne brought many large ploughing horses from Flanders, to be shepherded in his East Anglian territory after completing the vassal oath. Eustace intended to leave the possessions of England to his youngest son, Baldwin, and this time he would take him with him as well.

"Are those people telling the truth?" The Count and his son cautiously avoided the lords of Kent and asked Count Rodrigo, who was from a Gentile like himself.

"You mean Mistress Guspatrick?"

"No, I don't think anyone here really cares who owns the wild lands of Cumbria, I'm talking Calais, is Your Majesty really going to hand over half of the forces of the South to a stinking boy?"

Rodrigo shook his head, he didn't want to take the initiative to comment on the matter, Hereward's eldest son, Brand, was strictly underage, but he was the legitimate lord of Calais after all, and on the mainland, such an inheritance was indisputable, but given the importance of that fortress, no one believed that the king would entrust the task to a fourteen-year-old child.

"Your Majesty was only seventeen years old when he went into battle, right?" Rodrigo concluded.

"That's not the same...... "Gathering between the two lords was a Norman knight with long hair over his shoulders and a silver velvet tune, Robert, the son of William Mallett, a young man who was notorious in northern Wales, "Our Majesty is the famous prince of Normandy on horseback, and that Brand, I bet, he has never even been to a girl." ”

After saying this, the knight Robert Mallette let out a wild laugh, but the Count of Boulogne was not surprised, the Count of Rodrigo was a little hesitant about his frivolous performance, and the Spanish lord's straight nose and neat beard trembled a little, and he felt that he had to discipline this impudent fellow for William Mallett.

At this moment the trumpets of the swans sounded in unison between the curtains, and the king appeared in the middle of the court, and the nobles ceased their talk, only to be slightly surprised to see the queen followed by Lady Turfida, the widow of Hereward, whose face was a little pale, but who had not lost her dignity in her shawl, and whose slender fingers were set off by a sparkling ring of jet jade, which was not even much older than that of Brand, the eldest son of Hereward.

"Master Guspatrick, let's see you." King Edgar first summoned a strong young nobleman.

Guspartrick's indigo robes looked a little rudimentary at court, but what made the English nobles frown even more was his British accent, and the premature death of Ethelwyn, Bishop of Durham, was so premature that the second son and heir of the Earl of Benicia failed to receive an orthodox English education, which was obviously somewhat detrimental to the young man's future. Some of the older nobles remembered Uhtred, the eldest son of the Count of Benicia, a northern knight as brave as the Danes, but the young man in front of them was so far away that it almost felt strange.

"Don't forget your blood, my Lord Guspatrick, and my sister would love to see you at the court of King Alba, for the entire royal family owes you so much that we have decided to make you Earl of Cumbria and grant you estates in Wessex and Cornwall." The king's generosity made many breathe a sigh of relief, and the territory from Devon to Wessex was the most fertile land in all of England, and was no less rich than Essex.

Some of the nobles who had been associated with the Scottish court had heard that the Scottish king intended to give the young man the English subjects near Edinburgh, and that his father, the Earl of Benicia, had owned a large estate in that land. This may mean that there is another lord in the north who can match the power of the Earl of Northumbria, but it is not known which court this newly rising noble will choose to serve in the future, after all, this young man is considered hot in front of both kings.

Count of Northumbria, Volciov, also embraced Count Guspatrick without complaint, much to the disappointment of Moka, Count of Mercia, who seemed to be counting on some dispute between the two men, for example, over the belongings of Bebanburg. All these years, Count Moka had never trusted Walciov, who was of Danish origin, and in his eyes the northerner looked too much like his father, Earl Hugh.

"According to Lord Hereward's last wishes......" The king's next sentence drew even Moka's attention.

"Brand will inherit the lands of Calais and Peterborough—minus the portion left to Madame Turfida." The nobles were already humming, and the king continued, "We will give the Guard, the Englishman Martin Fifty Hyde, the guard of Hereward, and the Governor of the Château de Calais, and command all the garrisons. ”

If it weren't for the king's many years of prestige, the nobles would have been boiling, and the promotion of a commoner to the commander of the garrison in the south, not to mention in hierarchical England, even the Danes today would not do this!

"Against!" The first to speak was the old Earl of Mercia, "I must not trust a Welshman. ”

Most of the southern lords began to chim, Abbot Bath looked disapproving, and Bland, the son of Hereward, stole a glance at his Uncle Martin, a sight that made him almost faint with nervousness.

"Do you still know your king?" The tumult of the court was interrupted by a coquettish cry, and it was Queen Emma who spoke, and she took Madame Turfida by the hand and stood among the princes, "I have heard that the laity are not noble by their rank, but the brave can make their name glorified. You are not attacking a stranger, but a warrior who has followed his lord and king into battle and shed his blood for the kingdom. How many of you have been through more battles than Lord Martin, and how many of you have fought back against the Normans when they conquered the country? Mistress Rodrigo? Do you think we shouldn't give a Briton a high position? ”

"There are no Englishmen or Englishmen before God." The Spaniard replied dryly.

Seeing that Vorsiov was silent, Count Mercia did not speak any more, but no one knew what was in his heart.

The king bowed slightly to Count Rodrigo before announcing to the nobles the real topic of the day: "We have made an alliance with the King of Norway to form a combined fleet and sail south to the African continent. Our Holy Alliance will seize the Moorish harbor and allow all who own a ship, whether of high or low birth, to purchase privateer charters from us, which will be requisitioned in the future as long as there are no pagan merchant ships with the Holy Alliance's emblem! ”

Just as the Normans in the south were in full swing of the conquest of Byzantium, the "Holy Alliance" also began a criminal maritime enterprise, and in the future, the Kingdom of Denmark and the Duchy of Saxony would be added to this axis of evil, and the Viking blood of the entire North Sea was boiling again, this time, the northerners were no longer shouting the name of Odin in the war frenzy, but "the will of the Lord".