At the dinner, the waiters skillfully cut strips of meat at a long table nearby, cutting the roasted suckling pig, ham and elbow into slices, serving them with black asparagus and truffles, poured with sea salt and lemon juice.
"Where is Lord Aske from?" Theophano asked.
"Constantinople," Asker replied.
This could be considered as asking questions knowingly, after all, Theophano was also from there. As the conversation started, the noble lady pretended to be surprised, covered her mouth and smiled:
"Ah, you should be the heir of the Achilles family, right? I remember, I seem to have heard my niece Theodora say..."
Before she finished speaking, she was interrupted by Eleanor:
"Mother!" Eleanor smiled, "You must have forgotten that Theodora and I served in the same mercenary group before, and Aske was still our leader at that time."
Little Otto sneered from his nose, as if to say, "Mercenaries? The so-called Achilles family, that's it?"
"Ahem." Otto II also felt a little embarrassed.
To be honest, when he first met the Cang Qing Sword mercenary group, he had the same thoughts as his wife and children. The mercenary group is just a useful knife. How can any serious person be a mercenary?
Then he was defeated and defeated by his own daughter who was a mercenary, and he ran for his life in a hurry like a lost dog. Of course he would not talk nonsense about this kind of thing.
"Of course I remember the Blue Sword Mercenary Group." Otto II tried to show the majesty of the head of the family and said solemnly, "Your Excellency the Dragon of the Heart and the Dragon of Acid Erosion also praised your performance at that time.
There is a plus.”
Theophano was suddenly a little suspicious. After all, although his husband was used to telling lies, the two demigods were indeed reliable. Since both demigods praised the Blue Sword, as the leader of the mercenary group, Ah
Sk, it must not be a parallel import with only superficial appearance.
She turned her questioning eyes to little Otto, who was also a little flustered and quickly asked Aske:
"Cang Qing Sword Mercenary Group? I really haven't heard of it. Since my father also respects you very much, I also want to know from you, where is the headquarters of your mercenary group? How many people are there currently? The main camp.
What is the scope of business?”
"Your Majesty." Eleanor still had a smile on her face, but it made little Otto shudder. "You asked in such detail, are you planning to collect taxes from us? I already said, 'once'."
The verb she just used belongs to the past perfect tense in Frankish grammar, that is, "it was like this in the past", and the implicit meaning is "it is no longer like this".
After all, little Otto had taken a grammar class and quickly understood what his sister meant: Aske and I used to be part of the Blue Sword mercenary group (but no longer, so you ask P).
He wanted to ask a few more questions, but he was quickly defeated by the sharp gaze hidden in his sister's smile. Matilda, on the other hand, calmly sipped a spoonful of soup and asked:
"Sister, I'm not questioning your marriage choice, just out of pure curiosity: Since Mr. Asker was born in the Achilles family in Constantinople, why did he later become a wandering mercenary?"
"After all, sister, you have been chaste for so many years. We are all worried about you. We are afraid that you will choose to remain unmarried forever and end up going to a monastery and dedicating yourself to God like sister Adelaide did. But we never thought that you actually had a heart for a long time.
I have been waiting for Mr. Asker for six years..."
"In the past six years, Asik has been engaged in the mercenary industry abroad and has never come back to see his sister once?"
This question immediately stopped the two of them.
Because as we all know, the purpose of Asik's formation of the mercenary group is to fight the bronze dragon and go home, and this cannot be explained in detail. Even if a lot of words are wasted to explain it clearly, people will understand it:
Oh, it turns out that the reason my sister has been waiting for you these past six years is because you ruthlessly abandoned her six years ago and went home alone, you scumbag.
Of course, even if you use "working as a mercenary abroad" to fool you, the same problem will still exist:
You haven't come back even once in the past six years, and now you suddenly show up to marry our eldest princess, why do you make us believe that you two are true love? Scumbag!
"Matilda..." Eleanor's face darkened, and she was just about to use her eldest sister's dignity to forcefully bring the topic to an end when she heard Ask ask in confusion, "The sister Adelaide you mentioned just now refers to the Holy See.
His Excellency the Bishop of Adelaide?"
Hearing this, everyone present looked unhappy, even Otto II glared at Matilda.
The matter is not complicated. As the eldest daughter of Otto II, Adelaide has been fond of scientific research since she was a child. Instead, she has little interest in social interaction and etiquette among nobles. Later, she met Otto, who was still the emperor at the time.
After a quarrel, he packed up his luggage, ran away from home, and went to the Holy See.
This matter is actually not a stain. After all, for the HRE Empire that believes in Solomon's Catholic Church, dedicating oneself to God is considered a relatively glorious thing.
However, there were rumors among the imperial nobles that "Emperor Otto drove his eldest daughter Adelaide to become a nun in order to prevent his son-in-law from dividing the Saxon family property after marriage in the future." This is a bit unscrupulous.
Therefore, the emperor's family basically did not mention Adelaide's daughter to the outside world. If they had to mention it, they could only say something like "it is her honor to serve God" and "if she changes her mind and wants to come back, the Aachen Grand Palace is always open to her."
Gate" and other innocuous words.
"Ahem." So Otto II coughed and decided to tell the truth to his son-in-law to prevent him from listening to false rumors from the outside world. "It was Adelaide's choice to become a nun and study science. We respect and support her wishes.
;If one day she gives up her scientific research path, the Saxon family welcomes her to come back at any time."
"I see." Ask smiled and nodded, "Actually, I can understand Your Excellency the Bishop, because I myself also come from a noble family, but because of my hobbies, I chose the career path of a mercenary."
"That's right." Eleanor understood immediately and said with the same smile, "I respected and supported his wishes at the time. Now his dream of being a mercenary has almost been realized, so I opened my arms to welcome him back.
Matilda, you should be able to understand your sister, right?"
Matilda:………………
She silently put down the spoon, her face looking as ugly as if she had been hit by a stone. The man opposite was really eloquent, and he actually used the example of Sister Adelaide to easily reveal the fact that she had been fooling around outside for six years.
!
And what's even more outrageous is that Sister Sophie is still on his side!
"Hahaha, of course." Seeing that his daughter Matilda, who had always been aloof, was actually blocked and speechless this time, Otto II was very relieved and quickly came out to smooth things over, "Young people have some dreams.
It's a normal thing! Remember, as long as you finally wake up and come back in time, your family will still be your warmest harbor."
Even Theophano's face looked ugly at this time, because she knew that her husband's dream when he was young was to "sleep with a lot of women, have a lot of children, and make sure that at least one child grows up to be like him."
So she echoed her husband's words with a smile, and kicked Otto II hard with her pointed boots under the table.
Ask turned a blind eye to the small movements under the table and nodded to show that he was taught. Suddenly, he felt a warm hand reaching out from under the table and quietly holding his left hand.
Eleanor listened to her mother's words with a smile, and her right hand, using the cover of the tabletop, stuffed it into Aske's hand, and interlocked with his fingers intimately.
Because of his change of topic and clever answers just now, Her Royal Highness the Princess was very satisfied, so she gave him some small rewards.