Eagle Byzantium

When Raymond's demand for money was transformed into a Greek letter and sent to Constantinople by fast horses, in the Blachna Palace under the starry night, Emperor Alexius leaned on Malena's mature body with some surprise and stopped moving, because he keenly captured the slight physical and mental abnormalities of the chief lady of the court after her separation from him.

The summer breeze blowing in from the window fanned the soft curtains on the couch. Malena had not yet noticed the expression of the person beside her. She tilted her face and neck in a daze, and mechanically accepted the emperor's impact. Her eyes did not have the previous enthusiasm and desire.

"Are you tired?" The emperor got up very unhappily, put on a silk robe, and sat on the chair beside the couch.

Only then did Malena feel the emperor's anger. She hurriedly grabbed the corner of her clothes to cover her body and knelt down to the emperor. "Your Majesty crossed the sea and fought on the plateau for so long. I was a little dazed because of my concern." After saying this, she burst into tears and hugged the emperor's knees with both hands.

"Did John come to the palace before?" The emperor suddenly asked this question intentionally or unintentionally.

Malena's hands shrank as if they were electrocuted, but she quickly regained her composure. "The prince did come to the imperial capital many times because of the financial problems of the reclamation of the Thessalian Plain. Each time he went to discuss in detail with the Prime Minister of the Empire, His Excellency Buril, and then came in to greet me and the Queen."

"Hmm..." The emperor had no other doubts or guesses. "John is said to have handled the affairs of Moria and Thessaly very well. It seems that when he inherits the empire in the future, with the diligent assistance of Brennus and Xiaoniao, he will surely be able to revive the entire Rome."

"Your Majesty can also revive..." Malena, who had turned her mind at this moment, immediately smiled faintly and stretched out her delicate and plump hands, which appeared in Titian's paintings in later generations, to the side of the emperor's thigh.

With a sound, the emperor suddenly stood up with an angry look. His action overturned a dressing box inlaid with crystals on the small table. Various jewelry fell on the floor with the sound and light of stars pouring down, frightening the chief lady of the court to sit paralyzed, raising her arms at a loss.

Because of her flattery, the emperor felt the pain. The emperor could not help but think of the bloody battle in the fog, when the barbarian with the red feather on his hand pointed at him on horseback and asked a lowly and dirty Turkish slave soldier to shoot off my helmet feather. He also remembered how the enemy's iron hammer-like armored cavalry defeated and trampled on his left wing team, causing him to suffer the shame of abandoning the imperial camp. He also remembered that the barbarian was triumphant and released the captured Brennus, and asked him to pass on the message that my daughter Anna was pregnant with the barbarian's flesh and blood...

"I have done my best to protect the mausoleum of Constantine the Great, why say some irrelevant words!" The emperor threw down this incomprehensible sentence, "I will not sleep here today, go to Irene", and left.

Only Malena was left alone, sitting cross-legged on the polished marble floor, surrounded by a circle of dazzling expensive jewelry, with her hair loose, not knowing what to say...

A few days later, Conrad led tens of thousands of German and Milanese pilgrims to Constantinople in a mighty force. The things that the emperor expected happened one after another: this group of lawless bastards and blind drifters, robbing and killing, from the Sarabria wilderness outside the imperial capital, all the way to Philipsburg and Adrianople, all the subjects and merchants of the empire expressed their misery.

Soon, the most infuriating thing happened to the emperor. On the morning of that day, he rode his horse and hurried to the Juquintina Palace outside the city with the inner guard cavalry. Then, beside the palace garden, the sad Alexius saw the body of a dead lion and two trainers. This lion was a tribute from the Kingdom of Georgia. After being tamed, the emperor put a golden crown and a ribbon on it. He originally planned to capture Gawain, castrate him, and then put him in a cage to let the lion bite the barbarian to death.

But who would have thought, "My lion, before he had time to execute the traitor of the empire in his bloody mouth, died before he could accomplish his mission, and died in the hands of a group of Alemanni villains!" Alexius angrily shook his whip and pointed at the gap in the broken wall of the palace garden and shouted.

It turned out that a group of German pilgrims, suffering from hunger, gathered together last night, borrowed or stole chain mail, helmets and mattocks from Conrad's camp, and smashed the walls of the Juquintina Palace at night, rushed in, killed the emperor's pet lion, pulled out its teeth, and took away its golden crown.

Soon, news came that made Alexius even more sad and angry. The "Count of Simen" who guarded the Juquintina Palace and the Golden Gate was also a promising young man from his Komnenos royal family. He stood up in the riots last night to stop the atrocities of the Germans, but was brutally killed and his body was thrown into the moat. It was not until now that it was fished out.

Finally, it was Conrad who took the initiative to come to the emperor trembling with fear and said that he would thoroughly investigate the culprits who caused the trouble.

"Then take action, otherwise I will choose between the prestige of the empire and the covenant with the pilgrims." The emperor's order was unquestionable.

Soon, all sixty-four criminals, whether real or fake, were arrested by Conrad, and then handed over to the Varangian Guard of the emperor's outer palace. They were all beheaded with long axes at the edge of the camp, as a sacrifice for the lives of the emperor's relatives and pets.

Then the emperor's attitude softened. He took the opportunity to say to Conrad:

"More pilgrims will soon come from West Francia. Among them are the Duke of Aquitaine, the General Counsel of the Gallic Palace, and various noble and distinguished lords. As Henry Caesar's military commander, you will not let these arrogant Gallic barbarians be convinced. This is also extremely detrimental to the entire expedition to Danishmond."

"Then I hope Your Majesty will personally unify everyone. In this way, I believe no one dares to disobey Your Majesty's prestige and dignity." Conrad was also a slippery man, and he immediately kicked the ball back.

The emperor pondered for a moment, "How about I let my brother, Sebastokrates, lead this team?" Because the cunning emperor knew that the conquest of Paphlagonia would be much more brutal than the previous wars against Giliki and Gawain (it was all mountains, wilderness, and deserts, not wheat fields and pastures everywhere as the Roman Catholic Church had incited and boasted). He was afraid of accepting the bitterness of failure again, and was also worried that these pilgrim lords with their own ulterior motives would be unfavorable to him during the conquest - this group of people was much more difficult to tame than the lion.

A perfect version in 16-9 Book Bar!

Conrad immediately said no, (because the country's origin and world outlook were too different).

So the emperor felt embarrassed, and he replied that he would give Conrad's team the right to purchase supplies first, and as for the commander-in-chief, he would slowly consider it for a few days before deciding.

That night, Raymond's letter arrived, which solved the emperor's urgent need. (To be continued ~^~)