The people of the Neustrian kingdom are ignorant of the two storms that are forming and about to engulf them.

The terrible northerners had not plundered the land of the country for several years since they had paid the exorbitant annual fee, and last year the Lackadians ravaged the diocese of Turnnest, but the bishop expelled them. This diocese had had a good harvest for several years in a row, and this time, though it was not as good as it had been before, was not a famine, for their bishop had bought grain and livestock for them from other areas, and St. Aubrey blessed them! Last year's winter was not too cold, there were plenty of acorns, and there was enough food for the pigs grazing into the forest......

The abbot of the Abbey of Alban wrote so in the chronology of the abbey.

In other parts of Neustria, although people are not doing as well as the inhabitants of Turnest, spring is always the season of hope, and they sow seeds with hope and pray for a good harvest this year. In order to do this, they painted the front and back of the house with unintelligible signs, a practice that was rebuked by some of the old clergy, but the peasants followed suit, and in other places, the young clergy returning from the pilgrimage to Tourneste led the ritual of painting the spring signs.

In the spring, the sea ships brought two pieces of news: first, that the king of Kolomna had been killed while hunting; Second, the king of St. Omier sent men to intercede for his eldest son to marry the sister of the king of Neustria.

Together, these two messages reached the royal court in Neustria, and some of the old ministers thought it was a bad omen, but the Duke of Ulrich thought that the kingdom of St. Omer was worthy of marriage, so the marriage was settled. The minister of St. Omeer, who had come to propose his wife, was given a grand hospitality. The Duke of Catis and the Bishop of Black Terome were appointed to marry, and the princess was to be sent to St. Omer at this time next year.

As for the slain king of Kolomna. All it is known is that he was left alone, and more than one spear pierced him in the abdomen. But no one saw who the killer was. He had no living sons, so his brother Nold inherited the throne while his wife went to the monastery. This kind of thing was not uncommon at the time, and it did not cause any waves among the Li people.

This was the matter of concern to the royal magnates of Neustria in the spring of the year.

There are also some powerful people who have other things to care about besides marriage, martial arts, drinking, etc.

Countess Faisal is one of them.

Once she had found a candidate to be an Assassin in Riud, she set off and returned to the Earldom of Faisal. She considered it this way, that when her stepdaughter, the abominable witch, came to accuse her son of murder, she would have to defend herself in the presence of her greatest recourse, the Count. Let the witch's tricks not succeed.

With this in mind, she was reconciled to her husband when she returned from Rioud, and she fell at his feet, begged for his forgiveness, and told him that she had been taught by her brother, and now sincerely confessed her wrongs, and agreed that her son would become a monk in Turnest. And willing to make his own clothes for Zuò to wear when he became a monk, and choose other things for other applications.

The Count was complacent with her submission, and did not doubt her motives and intentions, for that would be tantamount to doubting his own abilities. The Countess made such an excuse to make clothes for her son. Picking up things delays the time of becoming a monk.

However, with the passage of time. It was not the countess's stepdaughter, the Caesarea witch's accusation. But......

She waited day after day, and there was no news of any assassination. Neither successful nor failed assassinations.

"This coward!" The Countess Faisal was furious, believing that the Assassin must be afraid of being executed, so she fled—Tournest was a port from where it was easy to escape from the Countess Faisal's grasp, "What a coward is an inferior man! Whether in Faisal, or in Rioud! An inferior person is an inferior person! Don't dare to kill a child! She cursed because of the cowardice of such people, and she made peace with her husband in vain, and waited for so many days! She endured so hard, all because of the cowardice of these inferior people, how could she not be angry!

She wrote a letter to her brother, ordering that the Assassin's wife be killed and that the possessions they had given her in the past be recovered.

Having disposed of the Assassin's family and vented her temper, Countess Faisal began to consider how she could teach her stepdaughter enough lessons to prevent her son from being sent to distant Tournest - this time at the hands of an odious inferior!

Finally, she decided to make a cake with poison in it and give it to her stepdaughter in the name of the Count.

Also busy this spring was Archbishop Joseph, who was also busy making new plans.

So far, he has sent out a total of three groups of assassins, more than the countess, but the first group has been hindered by the nearby villagers, the second group has not dared to do anything at all, and the third group has ...... Spotted.

The archbishop, like the countess, did not get the desired effect, which shows that a higher IQ does not necessarily have a higher success rate in political murder.

This succession of defeats annoyed the archbishop as much as the countess, and he cursed his adversary to hell many times, and of course, he would not be as stupid as the countess to talk openly about his feelings, and even in the face of his subordinates, he would not divulge his feelings lightly. A lady of noble birth such as the Countess often treated her servants as air, and the archbishop of humble birth did not make such a mistake - on many occasions he received the handle of his opponent from his servants.

Unlike the Countess, no one has so far suspected that he had the intention of murdering Bishop Turnest.

The first two assassins were sent in the name of the Duke of Ulrich, and none of them suspected that the order to assassinate was not from the Duke of Ulrich, let alone from the supreme leader of the entire Neustrian religious community, because of the Duke of Ulrich's murderous prowess and his contempt for religion as a former pagan. On the contrary, they all thought that it was the archbishop's persuasion that kept the duke from punishing them for their failures, and were grateful for the archbishop's kindness.

As for the third batch...... The archbishop could not confirm that he had actually assassinated him, but whether he did, the archbishop was sure that he had not fallen into any way for his opponent - he had repeatedly persuaded the cousin of the self-proclaimed bishop of Turnest to reconcile with his brother, and had repeatedly persuaded the cousin of the Bishop of Turnest to reconcile with his brother, and in all his actions and words, the Duchess of Cutis would be his best witness—she herself had been involved in persuading the man! It wasn't her fault that she didn't succeed, and it certainly wouldn't be the fault of his archbishop Joseph!

On that day, the archbishop, considering that the Duchess of Catis, who was evidently showing great concern for the Bishop of Turneste, lest she be hot-headed and get rid of the accuser who was trying to endanger her idol, asked to take care of his diet, which the Duchess was completely unaware of. A person who is immersed in assassination plots all day long will naturally look at others with a distorted eye.

Afterwards, Archbishop Joseph was glad that he had not fallen into the hands of his opponent, but he did not succeed in what he wanted to do, which made him very anxious, especially when he heard from the court servants that some noblewomen, led by the Duchess of Catis, wanted a younger archbishop...... He was even more agitated, these people were originally the forces that supported him!

In the end he made up his mind to go to a heretic, a heretic who was not afraid of the aura of Bishop Turnest.

In the spring, the seeds of a new crop are sown in some places, and in other places, the seeds of a new batch of intrigues are sown. (To be continued......)