Chapter 514: A Punch In The Face
"For I am nothing but a humble ambassador, and this list is just a mere suggestion."
Antonius stood up and walked around the tent, while the royal ambassador continued sitting over there with that grin of a professional diplomat always hanging by the side of his lips, and Apostolos still kneeling there with his head lowered behaving just like an old servant.
Suddenly, Antonius leapt back to the table, grabbed the pot of hot wine by its handle, and flung it at the royal ambassador hitting him right in the chest. The impact immediately made the fragile pot made of ceramic break apart unveiling the near boiling point wine inside flying everywhere in its surrounding, though most are splattered onto the body, the face, the hands, the neck of the royal ambassador. This sudden movement by the Caesar surprised everyone over here, even including the royal ambassador himself as he is still yet to recover from the initial shock until the graving pain of heat from the boiling wine started reaching him.
People say that burning is one of the worst possible pains that a living human can endure. Immediately when the boiling liquid came into contact with the naked parts of the ambassador’s body, pain occupied the entire part of his brain casting an invisible flame beneath his nerves torching his skin and his souls. The man collapsed on the ground hugging himself and started rolling around shouting in pain and agony while still trying to maintain his consciousness in the search for cold water. The guards on the outside heard the commotion inside the tent as well, and charged in fearing that their Caesar might be in danger, only to gape in shock when they saw what is really going on inside here.
Antonius has no mood to ask his guards to leave, nor does he have the kindness to give this man rolling on his carpet a lift. He picked up the scroll of names on the table and with an immense power, he torn the scroll made of goat hide into half and threw it towards the ambassador, shouting in rage. "You want a response huh? Then here is your response! What have you, and your masters in Constantinople done for me since the start of this damn war? Sending a group of delegates and spectators that can do nothing except for causing me trouble by trying to instruct me on which route to go, which town to attack and reprimanding my commanders for not showing any loyalty to Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch! And now, and now!..."
Antonius went forward again picking up the two scrolls of silk promotion notifications and torn them into half as well, and threw a beautiful curve across the sky hitting right onto the back of the Ambassador’s head. "Trying to make me grow suspicion on my two most trusted and capable commanders, trying to create a split between me and them, you and your master really must have the heart of a serpent to think of such a way, but for what? To demoralise my army and weaken my power on purpose? Is the brain of your master eaten by an undead? Even my dog behaves in a smarter way than him! And, and this list..."
Antonius jumped across the table, went to the ambassador still howling and rolling on the ground, and forcefully picked him up through the colour. The face, hands and neck of the ambassador is already covered in redness, rashes and swollen up by a bit, but Antonius would not want to care so much about it as he stuffed the list in half into the ambassador’s mouth stopping him from howling.
"You and your masters never try to achieve something out of your own, instead you people focus on the thousand years old tricks of intrigues being a cooking spoon, other people use it to stir pottage and other delicacies, but you people use it to stir shit! And forcefully stuff it into other people’s mouth! Do you think that it makes the person feel great? No! Have a taste of what you have been doing to others! Come, eat this up! Eat this goat hide!"
Antonius leaned the ambassador up by his neck like a chickling and threw him right out of the tent shouting. "You have wasted enough of my time! Right from the moment you people showed up outside my tent! Delaying my entire army by half a day’s time, and I am yet to go into Kastoria to give a presentation and welcome ceremony to my people! You have wasted the time of fifty thousand people, tell me, how are you going to compensate our lose? Only with your life probably!"
Hearing the last sentence Apostolos panicked and rushed to the Caesar. "Your majesty, we cannot..."
"I know, I know, find someone to tend to his wound, and then interrogate them on their true purpose over here, I feel that their purpose today is not just to give me this list and anger me by trying to separate me with Julian and Helio, no sane diplomat would ever want to do this, please Apostolos, help me investigate on this issue."
"Yes, your majesty."
The man on the ground outside the tent are still cursing the Caesar repeatedly, saying that he shall regret it and the punishment from Constantinople shall descend onto him very soon, but honestly speaking, no one gives a damn about this clown anymore at this point of time. The guards simply threw him into the cells and left him rotting over there with the rest of his gang waiting to be interrogated.
...
After a week long of waiting, the unnerved citizens of Kastoria finally had their moment of anticipation in place as the troops, which they still have no idea whether they came as their liberators or their enslavers, marched through the two city gates and immediately stuffed themselves everywhere in the forum and the surrounding streets.
The infantries and the flag bearers came in first in their full set of chainmail with their blade or halberd by their side, with some still having stains of blood on the blade tips. Followed by the cavalries, donned with chest plates and Latin style barbute helm in formations riding casually across the central messe, attracting the attention from everywhere as they became the brightest thing possible in the entire city totally satisfying the youngster’ image for a perfect knight as descripted by stories and their elders, luring a wave of whistles from boys and blushes from the ladies.
The atmosphere reached to its height when their long waited sovereign Antonius finally entered the city in the middle of his guards dressed in ceremonial uniforms of the old Roman style troopers waving the flags of the Caesar and the banners from all other crusader states lined together marching along one by one showing the crowd on how internationally supported is this war on the Ottomans, some nuisance appeared within the crowd when they saw the flag of the Serbian crusaders though it quickly settled down. There is one interesting about this parade though, that is the flag of the double headed eagle, the flag of the Palaiologos and the banner of the Ecumenical Patriarch are no longer spotted at the front of the parade, instead they are all now at the back.
The man who guided Antonius into the city, Torhan, took notice of this interesting phenomenon as well and immediately realised something. Though he kept his mouth shut never spitting a single word about this, and immediately halted any discussion among his colleagues ordering them to stay silent on this matter.
There is already a stage set in the forum of Kastoria, the troopers have already aligned themselves in the forum forming a barrier of protection, while the citizens of Kastoria too rushed into the forum finding whatever spot possible, whether be it on top of the trees or roofs. Of course, they are not here to welcome the Caesar and these five thousand plus troopers to come inside to fill their cities, they came here because they have been briefed that there shall be a very important conversation that shall take place around here that shall decide their fate.
Antonius stood still on the stage with a bronze public vocalising announcement system in front of him that is able to transmit his voice to every single corner of the forum through a complicated system made with siphons and pipes. He gazed at these people surrounding him, he can see the sighs of worriedness, confusion and suspicion in their eyes, it is clear that he is yet far from gaining the trust of these people who have just joined his kingdom, and so, he took out the prepared script from his pocket, but instead of reading from it, he threw the script to a side letting it set flying freely in the air in the gasps and awes of his spectator.
