"You mean that?" Duke Richard held the scroll and shook it in the air, and his strength almost shook it apart, which showed that he didn't take reading seriously in his heart.

"This is the last time I went to the Vatican, His Majesty the Pope gave me a gift, to be honest, I don't know most of the words in it, and I don't know much about it, and I don't know much about it, and it is really nerve-wracking to read it half by thinking and half guessing, but fortunately, I listened to the chattering nurse when I was a child, and I told a lot of allusions to Christ's help to the world, and I can almost understand it."

I stared at Duke Richard's sad face covering his head, as if I saw myself who was tortured by physics formulas in high school, I couldn't help but laugh out loud, and then because of the sharp pain in my chest, it turned into a grinning cough, he looked at my embarrassment and laughed, and patted the cover of the scroll seriously: "It seems that I have to read this Bible carefully, God's retribution is indeed coming soon." ”

With a hard time to calm the pain in my lungs, I gently rubbed my chest to let myself breathe, and decided to end this nourishing joke to cut to the chase, in fact, the short small talk with the parents who had been rivals like old friends was really incredible: "I wonder why I am lying in your room, although this soft fur does make people want to stay in bed for a long time." ”

"Finally asking the real question, right? Lord Earl, I still can't hold my breath, why did we stop abruptly in a rare good atmosphere for the two of us to chat. ”

Duke Richard looked at me seriously, and his melancholy eyes seemed to say, you see, I will use such a rhetoric as an abrupt stop, why can't I reach your level?

He stroked his beard, stroked the two mustache horns down, and continued: "Don't you remember how heroic and invincible you were on the battlefield at that time, like a titan? ”

Listening to his teasing words, I frowned and tried to recall, the last picture in my memory was that I was manipulating my war horse to leap over the spear of the enemy in front of the position, and after a perfect landing, I was unable to defeat four hands with both fists, and was dragged off the horse by several Saracen soldiers.

"All I remember is that I passed out in the fight, and the aftermath was a blank, maybe you can help me remember." I shook my head and said to the Duke.

"Then let me help you reminisce about your memories, in order to prevent you from guessing after listening, so the story has to start from the beginning."

Duke Richard motioned for his attendant to bring over a chair, sat down next to my bedside, and crossed his fingers as if to help himself remember, with rare patience:

"I have to say that His Majesty Otto is a resourceful monarch, at least in the matter of fighting, the resourcefulness shown is admirable enough."

"Before the departure from the Vatican, Your Majesty began to plan this big game, not only confusing the enemy, but also making many of you feel like you are falling into the clouds, unable to see the situation in front of you, and unconsciously becoming Your Majesty's pawns, and the whole plan is only known in detail to Your Majesty and me, an outsider."

I pursed my lips and smiled helplessly, after the Roman incident, His Majesty's defense of his own people was almost pathological, and he would rather believe in an outsider who has been in constant friction with him all the year round, rather than believe in any nobleman in Germany, and it seems that the emperor should be in this position, it seems to be a kind of sadness.

I stared at the duke's blue eyes, and my voice was so soft that I couldn't even hear it, as if muttering to myself and as if I was answering: "It's a pity that Your Majesty didn't expect his own death, and the people who played chess were gone, and the outcome of the chess game was not so important." ”

"Is that so?"

The Duke of Normandy raised his eyebrows, and the teasing meaning in his smile became stronger.

"At first, everyone thought that it was His Majesty the Emperor who had taken the lead in the favor of the Lord and led him to this great victory of Christ over the infidels, but now everyone has learned through the grapevine that it was the brave and fearless Count Nijmegen who took over the Emperor's banner and led the German army to turn the tide of defeat like a god, and that the praise that had been put on His Majesty fell on your head in one fell on your head, although the great nobles whispered different thoughts, at least in the hearts of many soldiers and ordinary knights, You're a perfect example of Roland. ”

"Everybody already knows that."

Hearing this, I suddenly felt that the pressure on my body was much less and suddenly increased, and my chest seemed to be pressed on a boulder, just like the Silver Horn King used the earth-shaped method to move the three mountains and five mountains to shock Sun Wukong, and the exposure of my identity was both a relief and a new shackle.

Duke Richard leaned down to get closer to me, and said in a mysterious low voice: "Let me tell you a big secret, if there is no delay in time, His Majesty the Pope should also follow His Majesty Otto, and let the two supreme beings judge the merits of their lives in front of God." ”

"What!"

Hearing this, I was startled, and sat up from the bed, and after a moment the pain rushed to my forehead, making my eyes dizzy, and I fell crookedly and limply on the bed, panting and asking:

"Where is Your Majesty's body? At that time, the situation was urgent, and I could only leave a few soldiers to protect me, and I didn't have many trusted cronies. ”

The Duke put his arm on my shoulder, a mysterious smile on his face, and stared at his beautiful blue pupils at such a close distance, which made me a little shy.

He nodded and said, "Don't worry, Your Majesty's body has been snatched by me and arranged for someone to be cleaned up, but due to the limited conditions, there is no way to bury it according to the emperor's standards." ”

His Majesty's legacy is now in my hands, absolutely weighty political cards, used to bargain with the great nobles, try to ask which person who covets the throne, does not want to get the opportunity to make his name justified, desperately working on the battlefield, is for the glory and wealth in the future, if it is robbed by others, I have the heart to die, thinking of this I gratitatively took Duke Richard's hand, and I was speechless for a long time.

"Don't do that, Lord Count."

Duke Richard shook off my hand as if he were avoiding the plague, as if he also felt the embarrassment of the two of us pulling and pulling, and looked back at the squire standing at the edge of the room, stood up and cleared his throat with a pretending of seriousness:

"The Saracens are all finished, and it is only a matter of time before Sicily returns to the glory of God, and the heretics there have become turtles in the urn, but it is more important to solve the current predicament than the loot in the pocket."

I stared at the Duke of Normandy's serious expression, a little bit I didn't believe that this weasel would be so kind to help me plan, he could only explain to me that he was secretly holding back some little Jiujiu, and he had been played by various big people all the year round to realize that he had quickly regained his senses, thinking that he could see through the secret behind the Duke of Normandy's inaction.

Thinking of this, I began to pinch my chin involuntarily, and Duke Richard, probably seeing what I was thinking, put the flask on the table where I could reach it, left a word, and turned away:

"When you come up with a solution, remember to find someone to inform me, you are a smart man, and you must be able to do everything you want, and although Your Majesty is an emperor under the command of God, it is always a bad thing to let a dead man in the house."

I was the only one left in the room, a room in the style of Saracen, with high round columns, white tulle curtains gently blown by the breeze, and the delicate incense burner in the corner of the room diffused with fragrance, as if it was burning some precious incense, making the whole room smell very comfortable and restrictive, and the peacock feathers hanging on the wall loomed in the smoke, like an Indian girl in a sari.

Staring at the high dome above my head, those exotic patterns, I suddenly thought that I was lying in an expensive ethnic hostel in Urumqi, but from time to time there were distant soldiers shouting for a change of guard, and the collision with armor and weapons reminded me of where I was, I inhaled the addictive aroma in my chest, gradually adapting myself to the pain in my lungs, and the thoughts in my mind became clearer little by little.

With the strength of Nijmegen, there is not much capital to bargain with the dukes and nobles who hold the power of Germany, once this group of impatient bigwigs is forced to be urgent, with their means, it is a matter of minutes to do it, and they will not blink their eyes, so when negotiating, they must not open their mouths and ask for a price, this is the most basic principle.

Greed is the culprit that pushes people into the abyss, and I don't measure it much, as long as I eat half full.

The facts are in front of us, His Majesty Otto is not married, how can he have an heir?

Therefore, the issue of the succession to the throne is a top priority, and whoever holds His Majesty's body in his hands will have the upper hand in reason, and will have the absolute weight of overpowering other careerists who are eyeing the throne.

"Nerve-wracking......" I sighed, closing my eyes and falling into deep thought.

The rise of the Dukes' family of Saxony is a long and old story.

It's like the phrase that my mother always repeats when she opens a fairy tale book before going to bed......

The story begins a long, long time ago:

As a tribal principality that was as important as Swabia, Franconia, Bavaria, and Germany, this group of barbarian warriors who called themselves Saxons also possessed the most tenacious fighting spirit among the East Franks.

It is said that the first duke, Widukind, fought for several years with Charlemagne, who came to conquer, and finally had to bow down under the strong pressure of the other party.

Successive dukes have always been keen on iron-blooded expansion, developing this narrow territory that was originally next to the Danish Nordics into a powerful principality, and played the role of the leader of the German principalities, until the Duke Henry I was crowned king of the East Frankish Kingdom in 919 BC, when Duke Henry I was crowned king of the Kingdom of East Francia!

(End of chapter)