Two silver pots filled with aromatic barley wine, wine, and the aroma of wine constantly leaked from the lid.

On the silver platter, there are steaming green cabbage, golden croquettes, stewed rabbit meat, marinated wild boar, roasted beef tongue, and a bowl of vegetable soup that is very thick but the ingredients are not clear, and there are two plates of sweet and sour mountain fruits marinated in plums.

On the table, there are small bottles of seasonings filled with crocus, cloves, peppercorns......

The recent harvest has made the food on the table more abundant than before, and the peninsula is also rich compared to people from other continents because it is surrounded by the sea on three sides, and the commerce is developed, so the food is more diverse, and after being a nobleman, he has privileges, and it didn't take long for Bran to adapt to the food of this world.

Regardless of whether the development of contemporary food is "advanced" or "backward", what the ruling class can import will always be above the standard.

Carol, Iron Mountain, and Marlene, across from Bran, ate a little bit of bread, half gray and half white, half the size of the meatloaf, and no rabbit meat (replaced by fish), but in the eyes of the sommelier, it was already a heavenly delicacy.

Most of the time the peasants' mouths are stuffed with coarse and hard teeth, mixed with sawdust, and in times of famine, they can't even enjoy black bread, and some edible "weeds" are also used as food, and in the bitter winter, they even eat snow to survive.

The sommelier swallowed his saliva, hoping that the lords would eat less, so that when the meal was closed, the food would enter his shriveled belly.

He was chosen because he would not salivate when his master was eating, and when he opened his lips, he would not show a foul smell of rotten teeth, thus affecting his master's appetite.

But the knight Iron Mountain opposite Bran wouldn't let the wine go, and he greedily sniffed the aroma of the food, brewing for the next meal.

This is very rude, but there is a difference between inside and outside, and it is inconvenient for Marlene to say.

And Bran, who has the highest status, didn't speak, and Carol, who is the master of Iron Mountain, naturally didn't bother to care,

The hourglass in the room dropped another level, but no one moved.

"Step on ......"

A light footstep approached, and everyone rose to greet them.

"Grandfather (Grand Duke)."

This nobleman was none other than Howard Charman, born in A.E. 1260.

He is fifty years old and the seventh Grand Duke of Venice.

If nothing else, later scholars compiling chronologies of the rulers of Venice will label him as the "last Grand Duke", one of the poor monarchs who were overthrown by his subjects and died of old age in foreign countries.

A hundred years later, in the secular stage plays of Venice, his actor would wear a crown of paper, a wooden sword at his waist, and his face covered with thick powder, showing himself as a "clown".

Howard was very pompous, and when he was on the run, he was privately nicknamed the "Landless Duke" by the Florentine aristocracy.

He succeeded to the throne at the age of ten, and during his tenure as the Grand Duke, he had a relationship with more than 30 lovers, breaking the record of his father "Love Holy Duke Lanting"!

Howard was triumphant, but during his reign plague and fever were rampant, he failed to use troops in the East, imposed many miscellaneous taxes and loans to compensate foreign countries, and was overthrown by angry vassals and merchants at the age of thirty-five, and Venice was changed to a "republic of mercantile aristocracy".

At the age of thirty-eight, he fled to the "Florentine Commercial Republic", where he lived with the help of a "young lover, Megan", and his former retainers.

Howard was tall, about 1.83 meters, and among all the people present, he was only slightly shorter than the young Iron Mountain.

There can be many lovers, in addition to power, is his angelic handsome and soft appearance, even if he is old, with a little melancholy blue eyes are still bright, many women will still be attracted by this pair of attractive jewel eyes and slender eyelashes.

It can even be said that both men and women eat, and when he was young, foreign monarchs wrote many love letters to him.

But Howard only loves the opposite sex, and likes to seduce married women as a challenge, and is known as the "master seduction".

He was twice challenged by a male nobleman to seduce his wife and daughter, but under his powerful gold coin attack, his opponent chose to end it hastily with a little green.

Howard was well-read in literature, could write sonnets, and wrote three collections of poetry, of course, good or bad.

But there is no countermeasure to governing the country, after losing the territory, he has worked hard for the restoration of the country, and after many years have passed, nothing has been accomplished, so he can only look at the map in the house, thinking about his homeland, and sighing in his heart.

In the beginning, there were many careerists and lords who came here to help Howard restore the kingdom and make a profit.

With the help of his "poet eloquence" and the "Leonard family" (the Marquis of Frank family, the eldest daughter-in-law).

The Grand Duke organized a counterattack with an army of 2,500 men, but when the "rabble" marched halfway and dreamed of how to distribute the wealth, many vanguard knights and foals were "shot in the knee".

The Venetian pun proverb, "If you are shot in the knee, you will kneel." ”

Then, the soldiers of the Republic of Venice, who had already received the information, poured in from all directions, and the casualties were sixteen to one, and Howard fled back to Florence in disgrace.

Today, in the manor, except for the local female lord Lady Megan, who gave Howard protection, no nobles will come here to listen to Howard boast of the glorious past.

Bran got up and helped his grandfather to sit down, and he felt that his grandfather was lighter than he had been last week, and Bran saw the bloodshot in his grandfather's eyes out of the corner of his eye.

"Grandfather?"

"Bran, have you read it, the latest information from the port."

After Bran shook his head, Howard took out the letter, and Bran took it, with an important message.

"Read it out to the people."

"Yes." Bran said solemnly, "On the 3rd of last month, the Venetian navy defeated the fleet of the 'Byzantine Empire' in the southern seas, and the emperor sent people to sue for peace.

The undefeated captain of the Venetian Admiral 'Reece Owen' led his team in a white-knuckle battle, killing 30 of his own men and killing 127 of the enemy, which is considered to be the blessing of Lucifer, the angel of war......"

The battle may have been watery, but the victory was undoubted, and the news of this great victory deeply stimulated Howard, and his gray hair increased by a third in one night, and his eyes seemed to be covered with a layer of fog, making his life path no longer possible.

Howard's three troops were all intervening in the battle between the land allies and the new power "Ottoman Kingdom" in the east of Byzantium, and all three times were defeated, and the Ottoman cavalry, in Howard's eyes, was a devil in human skin, invincible.

But Reece Owen, the former principality "Captain of the Imperial Guard" who he commissioned and participated in the "overthrow of the rule", did it.

Five years earlier, he had successfully resisted the Ottoman invasion of the eastern land, and this time he had won a big naval battle against Byzantium.

This side proves his own incompetence, and Venice, which is out of his own management, is getting stronger and stronger, and even the navy can go out of the peninsula to compete for more trade routes.

"The ministers misunderstood me." These four words, Howard once believed.

But now?!