Chapter 38: Pain of Army

Antonius pinned his hands on the handle of his blade, crouching laying low as he moves towards the source of the noise. While Abdullah called the guards to follow and cover Antonius, and he personally grabbed a crossbow in the crates by the doors and started loading it with bolt.

"Hey!...Hey, hey, hey, it is me." Just as the situation and atmosphere grew tense, a man emerged behind a container.

It is Giovanni's right-hand man, Mauro.

Antonius surveyed Mauro, who is dressed in a black leather coat, face covered with a black scarf exposing only eyes, sneaking on the ground carrying a bag full of just produced blades and arrows.

It did not take long for Antonius to guess his intentions, he lowered his guard, crossed his arms before his chest and gave Mauro an interesting look. "Well Mauro, what are you doing here? Dressed like this? I did not know that Giovanni thought you… the art of taking other people's things." Antonius shifted his eyes and stared at the handle of those blades on Mauro's back. "The insignia on those blades, they are produced by my iron work right?"

Mauro, with a wry smile on his face, put down the bag and replied. "Sorry Antonius, I can explain this, really."

…

Later that evening, back in the harbour, Antonius, Abdullah and Mauro, seating alongside each other by a campfire, in the middle of nowhere right next to the walls and cliffs. It is here that Mauro told them the whole story.

Among those a thousand brave men that accompanied Giovanni and Constantine out into action to destroy the fortress of Rumelihisarı, only merely six hundred made it back alive, and among the six hundred, around a hundred plus of them have their fingers, limbs, legs or other things amputated in order to survive the wound or infection, this means they too, are impossible to engage in combat.

While our friend Giovanni, who has a cold face on the outside but actually a heart of warmth on the inside, never disappoints his men and leave them stranded. He pays compensation in full sum to those who have sacrificed themselves or became dis-abled because of him. Some Genoese men who fought alongside with him for years wants to go back to Italia, he approved them and hired a Sicilian merchant ship to sail them back.

This has placed a huge financial burden on his shoulders, he still got an standing army to pay and feed, countless equipment and armaments to oil and maintain, compensations and medical bills to pay. However, the difference between him and Antonius is that, Antonius can get a unstoppable fresh flow of gold coming into his pocket, because after he got control of the Aegean sea, he can collect… 'protection fee' from passing by ships flying Ottoman colour, but Giovanni cannot.

Giovanni tried asking for more revenue from the empire's treasury from the Mega Doux Loukas Notaras, but he got straight away flatly denied. Then he went to the emperor Constantine asking him to pay a portion of the compensation and medical fees for his Roman Soldiers, but Constantine gave him a bitter smile saying that the control of all monetary policies are under the Mega Doux, even before he ascended to throne.

Giovani, the mégas doméstikos, became completely broke.

With no money, he cannot pay his soldiers, resulting in soldiers getting neglected to training.

With no money, he cannot recruit new men, those men who lost their lives will never get replaced.

With no money, he cannot get new gears and armaments, meaning if one blade is bent or one armour goes spoilt, that soldier is not going to get a new one.

Mauro once suggested to his superior to seek help from the governor of the Galata colony and Antonius. Giovanni rejected Mauro's proposal because he knows the governor is a typical Genoese businessman, a loan-shark who will give him an interest he definitely cannot afford. And for the latter, he fears that if he borrows money from his friends, it will damage his image in others.

Thus, Mauro decided to take action by himself in order to lighten the burden of his superior. He planned to sneak into the largest Iron Work in the city, which he has completely no idea that it belongs to Antonius, and 'borrow' some blades from there and give it to his fellow men to replace their already curved blades.

However, his sheer size and weight makes him naturally unsuitable to be a thief, then he got caught by Antonius.

An awkward silence broke up after Mauro completed his story.

Just in the midst of the silence, a horse came riding into the camp. With a series of whines, the horse came to an abrupt stop just before the campfire, the rider jumped down the horse creating a big thump sound on the ground. Under the light of campfire, the rider revealed his face, its Giovanni.

Soon upon seeing Mauro, Giovanni, whose face is beaming in scarlet colour with rage, slashed his horse whip onto Mauro's face, creating a scary red slash mark on his forehead like a twisting red snake.

Mauro squatted down hugging his head for protection, but Giovanni did not stop there, he continued landing slash after slash of whips on Mauro's arms and back, while cursing and questioning Mauro.

"You twit, wooden head, dummy, half wit overflowing with stupidity, who asked you to go steal things from other people's warehouse? Who? Who taught you to do that? Is it me? Did you see me take things without paying before? You little…"

Mauro remained silent even when streams of blood began showing up on his face. Abdullah, seeing this, sighed and stepped forward preparing to separate the two men, but Antonius stopped Abdullah as he grabbed his shoulder.

Abdullah looked back, while Antonius shook his head and said. "Don't interrupt them, Abdullah, they will be done in a minute, Giovanni is actually protecting Mauro by doing this…"