In the autumn and October of A.D. 1087, the King of England set out of Canterbury, crossed the sea to Calais, and went south to Picardy, where he met with King Philip of France at the Compiègne Forest.

Philip was shocked when he saw the endless carriages and horses of the north, and the crowd was winding, thinking that a great army was coming, and at this time, someone saw the banner of the Flying Dragon King, and shouted: "King Edgar is here!" ”

The younger brother of the king, Count Huger, persuaded him: "The intentions of the English are unknown, Your Majesty might as well avoid it first, and let me greet you in front of you, in case you fall into an ambush." ”

"Do you want everyone here to laugh at your king?" Philip flatly rejected his brother's offer, "Then people would say that the king of the Franks would not even dare to see the presence of the English king, and he would flee in fear." ”

So, King Philip pushed away the Frankish knights, mounted his horse, and headed straight for the Flying Dragon.

The British convoy consisted of only a few elite horsemen, and the rest were monks and pilgrims, and the king was relieved when he saw it, but under the royal banner, he saw several blond Danish guards standing on their horses, and there was no figure of Edgar himself on the left and right.

At this moment, a familiar voice sounded in Philip's ears, but he couldn't help but shiver.

"Cousin, you're here!"

Philip looked over the sound and saw a black-robed man holding an ebony staff aloft and greeting him from among a group of Benedictine monks.

So they all got out of the way and curtsy, and the king immediately dismounted, walked in the middle, and embraced Edgar.

The two long-haired kings huddled together, as close as half-brothers, especially Philip, who would not let go like a bear holding a honeypot, and did not care that the silk was stained with the dust on the surface of the English monk's robes.

After the two kings had left in the same car after a long absence, people began to talk, and some of the Frankish elders recalled the scene of the pilgrimage of the Count of Anjou, and the mighty knights of Anjou and the huge pilgrimage convoy followed the ragged Count, and a priest walked with the Count, and occasionally lashed the Count a few times, beating the old Count's back to the flesh as if he were escorting a criminal.

However, the old Count of Anjou once burned his wife with his own hands, killed people and set fire to them on weekdays, his hands were stained with blood, and he went to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for fear of falling into hell forever after death.

However, since King Edgar was in this way, the pomp and circumstance prepared by the Franks in advance were useless, and some bishops also quietly changed their gorgeous purple robes so as not to be too dazzling in front of the king.

Philip was not impressed, and he had been admonished by the hermit Peter not long ago, but he did not completely restrain his extravagance, but only pretended for a few days, and then immediately reverted to his old ways, which seemed to him to be nothing more than a public acting.

However, it was a damn autumn so hot that it was impossible for him to take off his silk and put on a heavy cloth robe.

The Frankish land has been swept away by drought, the nobles are hiding within the stone walls of the forest, and the farmers are worried about this year's harvest. Farther south, near the coast, the summer and autumn rains dried up even more, leaving vast areas of land without grass, and cattle and horses starving and thinning a lot.

King Philip could not afford to offend London at this time than he had done the previous winter, his narrow territory was likely to be cut off, and the royal family was unable to mobilize an army, and his vassals could not be relied upon at this time.

After listening to the bishops and priests sing Mass in St. Denis, the King of England and the King of France entered Paris, accompanied by about four or five hundred guards, and although the sun was blazing, these Anglo-Norman and Frankish knights were all dressed in complete steel and iron armor, and allowed sweat to penetrate into the soft armor of the inner lining, and before entering the city, a group of West Saxon gunners used their means to fire a few shots, so shocked that the Frankish square standard-bearers almost fell from their horses, causing a great commotion in the crowd.

Before the autumn harvest, many harvesters gathered in and around the city, because many estates had suffered from drought this year, and the harvesters' wages were very thin, and when they heard that the king of England was going to distribute relief in the city, they were crowded with waiting onlookers, and when they heard the sound of the cannons, and saw that the king's banner seemed to be approaching, the crowd erupted in bursts of cheers of "Long live the king", and many people were as excited as if they were watching the execution.

When Edgar heard this, he immediately congratulated King Philip, for it meant that he was so popular in Paris that he was a descendant of the Capetian family.

Philip accepted the compliment with pride, and had food and wine served out to everyone, while Edgar whispered to Uhtred, and the English began to throw coins with Edgar's portrait on them, making the whole entrance to the city like a triumphal in ancient Rome.

In order not to lose in front of the Frankish prince and the English, Philip held another jousting tournament the following week, and consumed all the chickens, ducks and wine stored in the royal castle, which made Edgar completely relieved.

The brightly armored knights and the beautiful women with stumbling sleeves made the Franks forget their fear of famine for a while, and enjoyed this rare good time as if they were celebrating a good year.

"It seems that the Franks have really lost their hearts." That night, Roger, Earl of Hereford, the commander of Calais, secretly mentioned to Edgar the performance of the Franks, "They have so many knights, but they would rather be strong in the jousting arena than go to Normandy to fight us." ”

"Philip is not an easy man to die, it's just that the time is not right now, but if there are a few more droughts in the past few years, he can't expect to touch Normandy in his life." Edgar replied that the Capetian family was probably far more obsessed with Normandy than their contemporaries, starting with Philip's father, to Philip's son Louis, and then to Augustus, the Capetian would continue to try to regain the northern principality that the Carolingian monarch had lost, and in his mind, the French king was definitely a much greater threat to Normandy than the emperor was to Saxony.

"After we go south, the safety of the strait will be handed over to you, my lord." He gave a few more instructions, and then sent Roger away.

The true purpose of the southward march is not yet revealed, but sooner or later, England's Channel forces will be weakened, and these Norman lords and the Flemish of Boulogne will be at the heart of London's future continental policy.

The biggest variable was the Bay of Biscay, where the fleet had to move south before the winter storm fell, and in order to gain access to the port of Pontilviller, he even allowed Harold's amorous "nun" daughter to marry Alain Loufus, whose family was to Brittany what the House of Burgundy was to Capetian and the House of Lancaster to Plantagenet. However, the royal family of Wessex did not have a suitable candidate, and could not use marriage to ensure the safety of the port like the Norman dukes did with the Boulogne, so they had to settle for a descendant of Godwin.

Although the Godwins can now be placed in the Welsh Frontier, their influence in the west of the kingdom must be limited in the future, and it is better to settle overseas to disperse the influence of the family, and there are still too many people in Wessex who see Harold as a hero against the invaders, and they are not as loyal to the royal family as the northerners.

However, thinking of his cousin Philip, Edgar's worries have weakened a little, the current situation in France is much worse than in England, and even the Capetian family can finally rise, so why should he be afraid?

The next day, the most exciting knighthood ceremony began, and King Philip summoned all the pending knights under this shield with the fleur-de-lis of the Frankish homeland as his new coat of arms.

"These are the knights-to-be of Paris?" Edgar expressed his amazement at Count Roger, who was beside him.

"Yes, Your Majesty, they are the henchmen of the King of the Franks."

Without waiting for Edgar to ask, Roger de Hereford took the initiative to explain: "There are many knightly domains around Paris, and that fat man is the son of the lord of Monteyeri, and the family has recently chosen three pigeons as their coat of arms, and his usual hobby is to rob transit merchants near the family castle. And his cousin Jocerin, the beautiful knight in the blue robe and full armor, whose greatest hobby was to make bastards in castles and villages. ”

Edgar immediately understood that these people were the "robber aristocracy" of France, and that their wreak havoc on the Île-de-France royal realm was the root cause of the weakness of the Capetian family.

But the Montrery family was interesting, a group of country lords who probably never dreamed that they would become Count Edessa and King of Jerusalem......

"Who's that young man?" Edgar gestured to one of the squires behind Stephen de Blois, who was of mediocre stature and wore black chain mail, looking out of place among the steel-clad Troyes knights.

"I don't know, maybe it's a distant relative of the Count of Blois." Roger shook his head, but he was a little strange about the king's interest, the young man looked less than sixteen years old, and he was dressed in shabby, what was there to pay attention to?

"What are you looking at, Lesser?"

"A knight." Yu Ge replied, seeing that the lord did not ask, he automatically lowered his eyelids again.

Just staring at the King of England for too long, but he didn't expect to be discovered by the other party, Yu Ge felt a little inferior, that person was too glorious, in his mind, only King Edgar could be regarded as a real knight.

One day, I want to be the greatest knight in the world.

The future Grand Master of the Templar Order, Hug de Penn, secretly set his life's ambition in front of his idol.