The death knell echoed over the Metzl Castle,  so clear that it felt as if the only sound left in the air was the ringing of the ominous copper bell.

An old priest who had never been seen in Metzl Castle led a group of priests to lead the funeral procession. The priest’s hair was frost-white, and a silver cross hung on his chest. Amidst the low voice of hymns, the procession slowly approached.

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The Duke of Buckingham’s coffin was not covered with the customary cruciform pall——the King had instead put a Rose royal banner over it. No one questioned this. If even the Duke of Buckingham could not bear such an honor, then no one in Legrand would be eligible to receive it.

Unlike the funeral of ordinary nobles whose coffin was carried on a carriage when they were buried, eight coffin bearers with black hoods came out of the manor carrying the coffin of the Duke. General Johan, son of the Duke of Buckingham, was at the head of all the pallbearers, next to him was the scholarly and mournful First Mate Charles, and most of the rest were the Duke’s old staff.

The Duke participated in hundreds of battles for Legrand throughout his life. Most of the royal soldiers he led died with him in the rebellion in the North, but there were countless knights who followed him on the battlefield in his era.

“It was 1412, when I was a minor longbowman, our general led us to fight those bastards in Thorne…..I thought I would die at that time! But it turned out that our general was the first to charge, so everyone followed in his lead…..” Almost everyone who followed the Duke of Buckingham in battle affectionately called the Duke “our general”.

In all the stories told during idle times, there were always knights who were proud that they had fought with the Duke.

The funeral procession was quite long.

Many knights came from all over Legrand, and they all dismounted from their horses, and put on the smocks they had worn when they fought with the Duke under their mourning robes. They honored their general with all their might. The King walked in front of them, followed by the procession of nobles, followed by representatives of the guilds.

When the coffin passed the long street where the crowd was waiting, the weeping could no longer be suppressed and filled the air.

The birds perched on the eaves were disturbed by their cries, fluttered their wings and flew into the gray sky. Snow-like white flowers were continuously thrown from all over to the slowly passing coffin.

Mourning flowers fell like snow, as if the sky and the earth suddenly became white and sorrowful.

The King was wearing a black cloak. He raised his head and looked at the mourning flowers falling like snow and the red eyes of the people. It seemed as if winter had not yet passed, and there was still continuous snowfall, but it also seemed that winter had already disappeared, and there was boiling magma running underground.

At the end of the funeral procession followed the poor who also came to attend the funeral, as they were originally invited to come. But as the coffin passed through the long street, more and more people joined in the funeral procession. Some of them prepared black mourning clothes themselves, and some accepted black mourning clothes from the royal guards.

The long black river flowed slowly towards St. Wyth’s Cathedral.

The Duke’s burial spot was very close to William III.

According to Legrand tradition, the tomb was dug on the spot on the day of the burial. The King dug the first pitch for the Duke, and then handed the shovel to General Johan. After that General Johan passed it to Charles. By the time it was handed over to the last knight, the tomb was big enough and deep enough.

The children in the choir sang hymns in unison. During the hymns, Father Anil held a heavy holy book and read the final eulogy.

The King stood in front of the sobbing crowd, and he watched the soil cover the coffin with the scarlet royal flag little by little with no expression. Suddenly he raised his hand, took off the rose badge on his chest and threw it into the tomb that was being filled.

Some things always come to an end at the cost of taking something else away.

The hymn was swept up into the sky in the cold wind, gathered together with the death knell, and gathered together with more elegiac songs, as if all the sorrowful past events from the legendary era to the present, surged up again, reminding some people, what kind of things they carry on their shoulders.

Legrand, St. Wyth Cathedral, 1433.

A heavy square stone tablet was erected in front of the tomb of the Duke of Buckingham. On the stone tablet were engraved with blooming roses and the phrase “For Glory”. On the day when the tombstone of the Duke of Buckingham was erected, on the other side of the Abyss Strait, the first group of priests in Bressi entered the secular palace.

After the symbols of the old era have fallen, a new era is now brewing.

………………

Rose Palace, funeral banquet.

This funeral banquet, which was supposed to be quiet and mournful, was destined to be filled with a turbulent undercurrent.

All the state representatives and lords who received the invitation gathered in the main hall of the palace. For these state representatives and nobles, they didn’t have much heart to mourn the death of the Duke of Buckingham, after all it was not a bad thing for their state. For the vassal states and the great lords, this meant that there was one less person to inspire fear in them.

Many people wanted nothing more than to applaud in their hearts while they shed crocodile tears on the surface.

The struggle for power would never end with death.

The Duke of Buckingham had always been a sharp sword that deterred the vassal states. After his death, Legrand completely lost an important pillar, and the entire country now fell to the young king. Obviously, for the people of the vassal states, they had doubts about whether the young king could possess the same authority——

Victory in war could be attributed to individual bravery, but politics required more cunning.

After the King won, he directly abolished the independent state status of Balboa State and Newcastle State. This approach, in the eyes of some people, was the willful act of the too young and arrogant.

As for the lords and nobles, instead of the sorrow felt by the common people, they paid more attention to some other underlying messages revealed by this funeral:

The archbishop of St. Wyth did not attend the funeral. Did this mean that the royal family of Legrand and the Holy Court were indeed about to shed all pretenses of niceties again? The funeral did not hold any Eucharist, and the royal family would not make such a small mistake in etiquette, unless it was intentional…..Did this mean that the King was about to retaliate against the church?

At the banquet, the lords wore mourning white flowers on their chests, raised their glasses to each other in the name of “mourning for the Duke” from time to time, and took this opportunity to probe each other’s true attitude.

The King sat in the seat of supreme power.

On the high throne, the King rested his left arm on the armrest, and held a golden wine goblet in his right hand. He let the representatives of the vassal states and the nobles below chat with each other, as if he didn’t see the pretense of sorrow on some people was being replaced by the joy of exchanging benefits. The stained glass on the dome of the main hall refracted the light of the candle, and the light fell from the sky, shrouding the King in a hazy halo.

He poured and drank by himself expressionlessly, an empty seat beside him.

That seat originally belonged to the Duke of Buckingham.

On the other side, Earl Henry, who contributed great efforts in the suppression of the rebellion and made great achievements, sat in a position that did not match his achievements. He sat with several border lords and talked in a low voice, discussing something. From time to time, his eyes swept over the King who raised his goblet and drank by himself.

General Edmund sat in the corner.

He held up his wine goblet as a cover to observe Earl Henry and the King. During the suppression of the rebellion in the Northland, after he led Ingres’ army to assist the King in attacking Balboa, he quickly withdrew, unlike that bigheaded Earl Henry——that idiot actually occupied a piece of land on the border of Balboa, intending to expand his territory.

He was simply dumber than a donkey.

Did he think that the King who abolished the Balboa royal family would be willing to let the land he finally regained be touched by the border lords? Or did he think that after winning some battles, he would have enough capital to act presumptuously in front of the King?

For General Edmund, the death of the Duke of Buckingham was definitely not a good thing for the vassal states and the great lords.

General Edmund already had a feeling when the purge order was carried out, but after he saw the King at the funeral, that premonition became even stronger. The death of the Duke of Buckingham injected something icy into the King’s veins, as if he had now firmly put on an iron mask. Under the mask was a bloodthirsty monster that was slowly licking his fangs, just waiting for the moment to declare war.

——He went straight from a proud young monarch to a monster birthed from blood and fire.

General Edmund would rather face a dangerous but familiar lion than an unknown bloody monster.

Seeing that the King on the throne did not move at all, the nobles at the banquet exchanged glances with each other. Finally, an archbishop who came from another region to attend the funeral stood up. He was from Yoringshire County in Legrand, and he was the second most powerful clergy member in Legrand after Archbishop of St. Wyth.

The Archbishop of Yoringshire stood up holding the wine goblet, first raised his goblet to the King, and apologized for his impolite behavior, then he directly made his own accusations: “Your Majesty, please forgive my presumptuousness, it is just that I really can’t witness such a colossal mistake happen in front of all our eyes yet no one calls it out.”

“Speak.”

The King answered casually while holding his wine goblet.

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“Oh Holy Lord, I have seen such a blasphemy towards the dead today.” The archbishop of Yoringshire County cried out, holding a wine goblet in one hand and the cross on his chest in the other. “In today’s funeral, there was actually no one to perform the Eucharist for our beloved lord Duke…..Oh God, how unfair is this to a most noble man like him? Could it be that Your Majesty wants to watch the lord Duke suffer in the red fires of purgatory? Could it be that Your Majesty wants the lord Duke to not receive redemption?”

Whispers filled the banquet hall, and it was obvious that the Archbishop of Yoringshire was not the only one who noticed this.

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