Eagle Byzantium

On the agreed date, Prince John and Gawain headed towards Miliocephalon from different directions and roads. Their purpose was the same, to "mediate the murder of Hugh, the brother of the King of France". In fact, at the beginning, John had also sent a letter accusing Gawain of being a potential murderer.

But his sister Anna rejected it neatly with pen and paper in the court.

Outside the city of Miliocephalon, the two teams set up their own tents. In addition to the thirty heavily armored Saxon and Danish warriors, Gawain also had two hundred red-handed cavalrymen carrying bows and sabers to guard the camp. Prince John and a group of followers and officials were also facing a formidable enemy. In the end, the two sides agreed to swear not to invade each other, and the camps were separated by one and a quarter miles. They dug trenches around them and built defensive earth walls. Gawain also ordered dense dog-foot wood to be erected on the earth walls. Then, starting from the first hour of the afternoon every day, a scarlet tent was erected by the woods in the middle of the camp road. Both sides brought ten attendants to talk. John's deputy was Maupoulos, a famous grammarian from the capital, while Gawain's deputy was his own herald Andeodate, and Vallot, the chief counselor of the royal palace representing the French Isle.

John, who had received his father's instructions, was well prepared for the negotiation. When Gawain presented physical evidence, he always refuted it tactfully.

On the first day, Gawain proposed a possible motive for murder in Constantinople, but John said that his documents clearly stated a warm welcome to Hugh, and that both his father and himself could make reasonable explanations for the fact that the empire did not send troops to the Antioch battlefield before, so there was no reason to make trouble and kill Hugh.

"Andeodate, record it." Gawain, who was sitting opposite the scarlet curtain, lowered his eyebrows and failed to make a strong rebuttal to the views and opinions put forward by the prince, so he just asked the herald to take notes.

But Vallo, the chief counselor of the palace, could not hold back. He loudly criticized such an investigation meeting, saying that the accuser was the Grand Duke of the Empire and the defender was the prince of the Empire. How could a fair and just judgment be made on Hugh's tragic death?

"But Lord Gawain is also the High Priest of Rome, and he has the full power to make a ruling on this matter. Or are the pilgrims from your kingdoms actually acting independently and suspicious of each other? Then I have to remind everyone present that anyone has the motive to kill Hugh." John's speech, now after training, is obviously much more sophisticated than when he was a teenager. Under his eloquent talk, Valor also shut up. Then Gawain suggested that Rome could send another full-power representative, preferably a bishop in France.

The next day, Gawain presented physical evidence: the carriage brackets scattered at the place where Hugh died tragically, and the fragments of arrows, among which the most powerful was the fragments of arrows.

Gawain held up the fragment tube and said to John, "As far as I know, this kind of weapon is only used by the Roman army." After speaking, Andeodate immediately recorded it.

John smiled, his hair was messy, his face was still dark and ugly, like a swamp full of weeds, and then he waved his hand and said to the Turkish slave Aksepokos beside him: Did you see this so-called piece of arrow clearly?

After a short time, Aksepokos nodded and said to everyone in the scarlet tent in Greek, I saw it clearly.

"Give you the tools, make one on the spot." John ordered immediately, and then asked someone to bring out the small hourglass. "If you can't make it, I'll chop off your head with an axe."

In full view of the crowd, Axepokos sat cross-legged on the central carpet of the scarlet tent, erected a slender wooden tube with both hands, and then pulled out a light saber, quickly and flexibly split a double line groove along the top of the wooden tube, and then stopped abruptly two or three inches away from the tail end, then took out the hemp rope, twisted it with saliva, chiseled a hole on the side of the wooden tube, and tied it with a rope. Then he stood up, bowed to the surroundings, took the short arrow handed over by an ordinary Roman warrior from the quiver, injected it into the middle of the film tube he made, and then hung the bowstring, and shot it calmly after it was fully primed. After a slight sound, the film tube was taken back by Axepokos, and the arrowhead flew far away, and a small hole was pierced on the target in front of the scarlet tent.

"Your Excellency, the Grand Duke, and the Chief of the Gauls, the Chief of Staff - now you can see that a Turkish slave next to me who knows a little about archery, who previously served the Sultan of Konia and had never seen a piece of arrow, made this weapon in just one minute. Even though I was prepared, I can clearly see that the view that the noble Hugh was killed by the Empire based on the fact that 'the piece of arrow was used by the Imperial Army' is completely untenable." After saying this, John spoke to Gawain, who was leaning against the back of his chair.

"But, after all, no other pilgrims used this weapon." Gawain was still arguing.

"Grand Duke, everyone knows that your army has the most diverse weapons. You have spears like the ancient conqueror Alexander, heavy cavalry like the Normans, lightly armed archers like the Magyar Turks, and more traditional foot sword and shield warriors. I'm just saying it's possible. There's no reason why all your ordnance departments can't produce this kind of arrow with no technical difficulty. You know, the Latin bows produced there are famous for their excellence. Even the Franks want to get a Seleucid crossbow." It seemed that John was very familiar with the situation in Seleucia.

"Andeodate, take notes." Gawain's forehead was covered with sweat. If he had to describe his current situation in one word, it would be "poor for words".

But John kept on pursuing him. He suddenly held up an arrowhead, "For example, this one, a four-sided arrowhead, a standard weapon of the Roman army, pulled out from the body of the victim." Then he held up another one, and everyone saw the inscription of the Seleucid Arms Department on it, "It's exactly the same, right? In other words, this kind of arrowhead can be made by Feladofiam, Seleucid, and even the Kony Turks can make it easily. It's too rash to use this to slander the Empire's army as the murderer. It's unconvincing, let alone accepting it."

In this way, it was unimaginable for everyone present. All the accusations were resolved one by one by this young prince. Valor stood up panting and continued to complain loudly, saying that no one could provide a real answer to Hugh's death. He had lost patience with such simple verbal sophistry.

Gawain could only announce that the second day's physical evidence session was hastily concluded, and then returned to the camp with Valor, only to find that another Norman earl, Richard, had arrived.

This Richard was also very interesting. The first thing he said when he saw Gawain was angrily, "Why are you still negotiating? We should start a war, a war against the Kingdom of Greece!" (To be continued ~^~)