Duke William's spirit was as trance as in the clouds, and strange moans continued to emanate from his mouth, and a Norman woman with a white neck and broad shoulders supported the Duke's fat body and put a pile of straw into his large bed to make him a little more comfortable.

"What is he talking about?" Bishop Jeffrey de Montbray asked Abbot Longfrank in a whisper.

"Est, non est......" LongFrank, who was the courtier who was most familiar with the Duke himself, actually discerned two sentences from the intermittent song-like murmur, which contained a rich religious meaning. LongFrank was the mentor of the Duke's sons, William's most trusted man, and he had no real opponents other than Bishop Odo, and even Bishop Odo had to admit that LongFrank had no personal position in the affairs of the Duchy, and that he did not belong to any faction - this was the only reason why the lords acquiesced in his interpretation of the Duke's final explanation. Longfrank, knowing that he should not say too much, glanced at Jeffrey's nephew, Robert de Montbre, and resumed his silence.

A conspiracy is brewing, everyone knows it, but it's never clear who is the enemy and who is the ally. Among the war lords in this room, there were four of them who had attended the Council of Lillebonne, who was planning the invasion of England: Odo, Bishop of Bayeuux, Robert, Count of Mortan, Roger de Montgomery, and Roger de Beaumont, the two younger brothers of the Duke, and the four gray-haired Norman knights all looked at the dying man on the bed with expressionless expressions, the power wrapped in jewels had long since dissipated, and the person in front of him was called the Duke, but there was no fear of him in their hearts.

Montgomery's eldest son, Robert de Berem, glanced sideways at Robert, who was wearing a rich green Italian shawl and praying with his hands folded. The young lord of Berem suddenly noticed that the duke's youngest son, Henry, was talking to Hugue da Franche in a whisper.

Known for his brutality during the battles between Brittany and Mann, Hugues was known as "Lupus" by the Franks and Britons, and he drew a white wolf on his shield to terrorize his enemies, but the tyrannical knight shuddered when he found Robert de Berem looking at him. Huge didn't know much about Belem, but he had heard those rumors, and he had seen this guy kill people, the kind of madness that didn't belong to the bloodthirsty samurai, that was the face of a criminal. Berem's mother was a vicious woman, and her cruelty to her vassals eventually led to revenge, when a team of Norman and Mann knights stormed the castle and assassinated the noble lady. Naturally, the Montgomeries did not make the murderers happy, but what was shocking was what Robert de Beremme did next: the Berem family had no male heirs, and he naturally inherited her family inheritance from his mother, and then he captured all the murderers' families one by one, and let them follow the army of the Berem territory south to Mann, and after the Anjou refused to hand over the remaining murderers in exile at Le Mans, Count Robert ordered the hostages to be beheaded and thrown into the city with trebuchetsets. The people of Le Mans saw the heads of ungrown children smashed into a bloody blur on the walls, and the madman under the city was screaming and smashing a corpse tied to wheels with an axe and gun—a poor priest who had the misfortune of being born in the same family as the enemy of Berem.

In the face of such hatred and tyranny, it is said that the whole sky seemed to retreat, and the Anjou army guarding Le Mans was so shocked that they handed over ten exiles on the spot, and they were crushed by Robert de Berem under the wheels like a beetle.

After this incident, Normandy has legends that Berem's mother gave birth to him after contact with the devil, and the duke himself was afraid of this demon son, so much so that he sent the Duchy's troops to be stationed in the castles of Belem one by one.

Hugue also heard that after the Duke fell ill, Berem had expelled all the garrisons, and now he and his father Montgomery appeared here with a swagger, literally ignoring the Duke's authority. The older generation, such as Hugue, was still immersed in the memories of the duke's iron fist for decades, and naturally fell behind in the face of the young man's utter lawlessness.

Henry also noticed Berem's gaze, he knew that Montgomery was an ally of his eldest brother Robert, and this Belem might be his future enemy, but he did not show any hostility, but smiled at the other party, as if this was not his father's bedside, but the market of Rouen.

The Duke of Normandy opened his cloudy eyes, and there was a look of fear in his eyes, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare of hell.

"Otto! Robert! The Duke cried out weakly, like a mad boar caught in a trap, trying to climb out of the straw mat beneath him, but he was lonely and helpless.

The two men whose names were called immediately stepped forward, and their presence calmed the Duke slightly, and then he made a pleading voice.

"I've forgiven you, brother!" Bishop Odo's voice was a little emotional, and for a moment, everyone almost thought it was his heartfelt words.

Robert was much more excited, and when he heard his father mention his mother's name, he immediately choked up and nodded his head like melting ice, in fact, his feelings were much more sincere than the Duke's, and he believed in his father's confession because he wanted to, while the Duke himself was more out of fear of the Lord of Hell.

Henry looked at William Loufus, who looked sad, which made Henry feel admiration, and Lufus probably coaxed himself with this expression of resignation, but Henry knew that just yesterday, the messenger of the Flemish had just met Loufos himself.

Henry didn't know how much power Luforth had, he himself only had some vague promises from the lords of western Normandy, and Hugg "Bad Wolf" could only count half of his own people, so he decided to wait and see what happened for the time being.

Everyone was wearing masks, and even the Duke on the bed was still wearing his own mask, and until the last moment, he refused to show himself as God had given him.

Abbot Longfrank finally confirmed for the lords that the duke's breath was cut off, which was of course superfluous, and everyone could smell the stench on the bed. The lords had murderous expressions on their faces, and the deathly silence of the scene betrayed an ominous connotation—the noose that bound the war hounds had been untied.