Chapter 613: Education
"Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!" The maiden at the side sunk into a state of shock as she witnesses the scene before her, with the children hurdled together, shivering and crying upon the sudden change of events.
"Times have changed, mister." A wither of smoke emerged from the tip of the rod like weapon in the hands of Antonius. "Your way of living, as maggots roaming the streets haunting on the innocent lives of maidens and homeless have ended, for there is, without question, no soil for growth of you kind under my domain. I do not welcome the likes of you, now sod off if you still have any shame on yourself."
"Sorcery.... Witchcraft..." One man is absolutely haunted out of his life as he eyed at his pal who is twisting in agony on the ground holding his abdomen with a pile of mixture of sweat and blood on the ground forming up. He has never seen such things happening before his eyes before in the entire thirty years of his life, and neither has he had any idea on what this can be, which leads to one thing – this man before him is a wizard, performing tricks of the unknown.
"Run! He is a wizard!"
"No!" The other man behaved in a rather calm fashion though, as he pinned down his panicking friend and shouted in his face. "I know this thing, this looks like that secret miracle weapons that was introduced by the Sultan two month ago, there is no need to fear for that thing! It is only usuable for one shot Go! Kill him before he reloads!"
The bandit stopped holding back, and lunged towards Antonius with the cleaver in hand. However, Antonius seemed to not panic at all, despite the fact that the rod like weapon is burning his hands forcing it to drop it onto the ground.
"Cerberus," Antonius calmly called to the large Varangian guard beside him, nursing his burnt hand. "Handle them."
The looks of Cerberus instantly changed as he received the order with a twisted smile turning up his face with the scar on his forehead spreading out like a worm, exposing the skin beneath, as he replied holding out to the axe on his back. "Yes, your Highness."
"Be gentle, we have woman and kids here."
Nodding, Cerberus instead drew the dagger at his waist, and with the speed and ferocity of a predator, lunged into action. In a flash, he parried the first bandit’s attack, sending the cleaver flying into the air with an iron-gloved hand. He plunged his dagger into the man’s throat, immediately placing a hand on the wound to avoid a bloodbath. In a seamless motion, he sprinted towards the second bandit, grabbed him by the head, and crashed it against the wall, rendering him unconscious. All of this took barely ten seconds.
Antonius wiped the blood spilt onto his robes, then threw it to Cerberus telling him to clean himself up, and walked to the bunch of children with Khalid.
"It is all over, children, but a word of advice, you need to return to your parents before night falls, these hidden alleys are dangerous."
Khalid translated the words to the children.
The young maiden first recovered from her trauma, as she bowed graciously towards her saviour and answered. "Thank you, for saving our lives, all of us here have no parents, we live in the alley here together under these shelters."
She pointed towards the makeshift shelter built with some wooden boards and straws at the back of the alley.
Antonius frowned. "What happened to your parents?"
The maiden answered with tears in her eyes. "My father was once a commander under Candarli Halil Pasha, he died fighting the infidels under that cursed Antonius De’Ricci in Thessaloniki ten years ago."
Antonius remained silent, he pointed to the children behind the maiden. "What about them?"
The maiden pointed towards the boy who have spoken to Antonius earlier this day. "His father was killed on an expedition to Epirus last year, his mother hang herself in despair after losing all hopes of survival without the income from the Janissary."
"His father was killed in Erdek, her mother remarried after half a year leaving him along."
"Her father was killed in Bulgaria..."
"Her father was killed in Archea..."
The maiden turned to the seemingly youngest boy among them. "His father is killed just weeks ago, in Kavala, and he has just joined us two days ago."
Antonius gulped, without words.
"Thank you, kind sirs." The maiden, with some kids, bowed again to the three men before them. "We are strong when we are together, there are no need to worry about us actually, we thank you sincerely for your chivalrous deeds, you have proved us that there are indeed still good Rumelians out there. We have nothing to offer, but please take this, as our gesture of appreciations."
...
The three men left the gates, with various emotions in their heads, and each a toy doll made out of dry straws in their hands.
"What do you think, Khalid."
Khalid, who is surprised that the Caesar called out his name, raised his head and answered. "This is the consequence of war, your Majesty, a price to pay as we reclaim all the lost territories, a war that ends all wars in this place. There shall be no more occurrence of such things as we have reconquered the city, and these children will surely receive aids once our government is established in this city."
Antonius shook his head; this is not the exact type of answer he wants.
"What about you, Cerberus?"
"With respect, your Majesty." The burly man sighed. "It might not be a solid idea to give them that pouch of copper, for an expected wealth of generosity to folks hanging on the verge of starvation might cause an entirely negative effect than help, especially when they are a bunch of orphans, with no knowledge on the rights and wrongs with the experience of that distorted childhood they have and getting ransacked on a regular basis."
Antonius tilted his head. "Is that from your own experience in Novgorod?"
Cerberus kept silent for a second or two, and said yes.
"Pass my words to Julian once we arrive at camp, send some men to the alley, and place the children there under protection."
"Yes, my lord."
The three men rode back to camp, without any further words.
The cart with straws and the donkey is nowhere to be found, forgotten in some corner of the market.
The marketplace, abuzz with activity as always, appeared to be the only place in the city untouched by the ravages of war. Life continued as usual amidst the cacophony of vendors peddling their wares, cursing soldiers on patrol, the sounds of various animals, and haggling customers. The marketplace, intrinsically woven into the lives of every city dweller, presented a stark contrast to the rest of the city. Beyond its vibrant confines, the city wore a somber cloak of white - a traditional sign of mourning - punctuated by beggars starving on the streets and the rubble of buildings brought down by the war.
And in the corner of the market, there is a donkey, hopelessly trying to reach for some water after being stationed for a day under the sun.
...
"...Which is why I said, that the key thing in this matter is education, there is already no possible way for us to integrate this generation of Ottomans into our mass population following our lead, we can only try it on the next generation onwards, and perhaps the next next generation, until one day we will be able to guide them onto the right trick, washing away the history of wars and hate."
Alexios is here in the tent seated at one side, with Anna on the other side, and Antonius in the middle walking in circles describing what he has seen in the day and his ideas.
"What a pitiful girl." Anna wept the tears on the side of her eyes expressing her broader love as a mother. "Why did you not bring them back here? We can definitely afford a dozen more mouths to feed in our court."
"We can save them, for sure, my love, but we need to look at this entire event treating it as a social phenomenon." Antonius answered in a serious tone. "They are pitiful, of course, but there are hundreds or thousands of people that are in a same, or even poorer state as them, and we definitely cannot save all of them, but we can perhaps set policies that can help them to save themselves."
"Yes, and it can only be done through two things, your Majesty; Education and welfare." Alexios spoke looking at the Caesar and the queen. "We have an existing set of welfare system for orphans, but that is for the orphans whose parents have sacrificed themselves in war or in production for the state and the ideology, these orphans... we might need to have a different system of welfare for cases like these. Right now, the most important thing that we need to do, is to minimize the amount of hatred they have on the Romans and the state, and then can we proceed on with educating them into a Roman."
"I will be in charge of building the new welfare system, but at the same time we need to have someone, a scholar, to plan out the ways on how to educate these children turning them into Romans."
The two men looked at Anna, together.
"Are you willing to take up the task, Anna/ Your Majesty?"
