Chapter 350: Price To Pay For War

"Our rural ancestors, with little blest, Patient of labour when the end was rest, Indulg'd the day that hous'd their annual grain, With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain."

-        Second Book of Horace, Alexander Pope (Pope is his surname)

The negotiation between the two sides went on smoothly, with the final deal being set in merely two days, a miracle for any sort of negotiations. With the peace treaty being signed it successfully marked the end of this winter campaign, the Ottomans promised to cede the strip of land to the Romans creating a buffer zone, never to infiltrate in to Roman controlled Thrace again, stop persecuting the Romans in their own territories, open up trade for the merchants from Thessaloniki and never to sabotage the city of Constantinople. 

It is indeed a victory for Antonius and his army, but if one scrutinizes through this treaty line by line together with the understanding of the current situation, they will find out that the Ottomans actually never really lose any thing. 

That strip of land? It is just the no man's land between the Roman and Ottoman line of defense which certainly no farmer would want to cultivate any crops there. Further infiltration? The Ottomans shall not be capable of doing so after this battle, stop persecuting the Romans? The Ottoman government is an open minded government that wanted the Rumelians under their rule to provide a stable source of taxation rather than persecuting them. Opening the ports for free trade to the Romans? The Romans would blast it open any ways with their naval superiority. Sabotage the city of Constantinople? What value does that city still carries rather than a useless geo political significance that no one except Sultan Mehmed had wanted.

Nevertheless, the situation here in Thrace is now settled, and it is now time for the fellow soldiers to go home, take down their armours, store their spears, and pick up the hoe and spade once more in preparation to shape the land when it softens in Spring in the brand new year of 1460, hoping that they

However apparently for Antonius his journey would not just stop here, it has been five whole years since he took over this piece of land, and he wants to walk a different way than the rest of his troops with only Yuri and fifty calvaries to serve as his personnel guards and have an inspection on his achievements in these lands.

Antonius went northwards through the mountain trails in to the plains of Drama, the heart lands of Roman controlled Macedonia. Thanks to the previous Ottoman infiltrations and sabotages, the villages and smaller towns in the plains have all been completely demolished with its residents either taking refugee in walled cities and castles, or taken in to slavery never to return to their homes again. The road in these region now is literally scattered with wandering bandits who rob not for fortune, but for basic survival. Almost all production activities here have ceased with no one around, leaving such a fertile piece of land beside the Mediterranean empty.

It is certain to Antonius that war has done such a havoc to this piece of land that it would not be possible for this land to get back in to production before law and order and a proper serving government is re-established, a long way to go for things to get back to normal here.

"Come here Yuri." Antonius waved as he removed his boots and climbed down in to the cold hardened dirt, checking on the soil's condition. Yuri climbed down his horse squatting on top of a dried agriculture irrigation canal, and began digging the hardened soil with a spade that is only approximately twice the size of his hands. After digging for a while Yuri just felt like he would rather go and wave his beloved axe than squatting here doing a farmer's work. He groaned and complained. "Wha' are we doin' here, admiral? Are we helpin' the farmers t' sow thar seeds?"

Antonius did not answer his loyal Varangian guard's grown immediately, instead he dug further in and finally reached his hands for a few little pickle like things buried in the Earth, and showed it in his hands to Yuri. "My boy, have you ever been a farmer before?"

"Nay, I 'ave once tried catchin' salmon 'n trouts when I was a teenager back in the Bałtyckie morze, but I 'ave ne'er sowed a single seed in the soil…" Yuri replied with his usual twisted tongue Greek, scratching his head not knowing why is the admiral asking him this question.

Antonius grinned showing the thing in his hand to the burly man. "Look Yuri, these little things here are actually seeds, seeds of wheat, but dehydrated and flattened… Most likely a failed crop that has been sowed here since last year."

Seeing the awed bull's eyes from the Varangian Antonius made a proud laugh for himself and commented. "I have once forced to work in a farm stead for a Latino land lord back in my home town, that is why I have all of these knowledge."

While he did not lie for the first part, but the thing is he acquired this kind of agriculture knowledge only with the help of the old man Anjelo.

Antonius went on digging in the group with Yuri and several other men, this is an important task for governors and officials when they just got appointed to a place to have a better understanding of the agriculture situation in this land. They started with chatters and giggles, but the more they dug that laughter gradually disappeared from Antonius' face; As it is not only one or two place that has a few grain seed that failed, it is almost this entire place, buried with failed seeds that could not even sprout, dying before they even reach the surface embracing the love of the sun light.

Antonius surveyed across diaulos after diaulos (three hundred plus square meters) with his men digging up one after another spade of dirt trying to find the things beneath, and indeed they found many, many failed crops staying still buried beneath the hardened soil failing to sprout and dehydrated, with a dull black colour, ripped of any sense of life. Antonius remained speechless with a grim face and rubbed this few failed seeds in his hand palm, and the seeds fell in to several pieces with the strength given falling on to the ground, the men, including Yuri, surrounded their admiral all daring not to mutter a single word.

Suddenly Antonius threw the handful of soil and failed seeds down on to the ground and stepped hard on to it trying to venge his anger by releasing his force. He looked around and shouted to his men for the first time in a very long time, with his eyes literally spitting fire like that of a wyern. "Go! Do not just stand here! Go find any villagers or inhabitants near by! Take him here! And ask why the hell is this piece of land full of failed crops! Then we shall go and find trouble with the governor!"

Yuri and his men immediately scattered around going in to scouting the surrounding area, but they found no one. The villages have all been evacuated, wells sealed, houses empty, and certainly not a single living person living around. They know that thanks to the previous enemy infiltration and sabotages it created many vacant no man's land in the region filled with nothing but crows, bandits, swamps, and perhaps witches. But they had no choice but to continue searching, as the one who gave them this piece of order is obviously not in a good mood to bargain at the moment.

Finally, Yuri and another soldier finally found a bunch of living people a distance away from a densely populated town of Prosotsani, though it seems like the group of people are not just some ordinary civilians walking around, instead it seems like… another group of rogues taking advantage of the chaos in the region and attempting to rob some one passing by.

Yuri looked again from a slope near by and to his joy, he found out that the victim these bastards are robbing seems to be a lass. He loved these kind of things influenced by stories of Norman knights and Ruski heroes saving people from dilemmas, earning dignity and respect of the people returning home being glorified with the title of a hero. With out further thinking he made a deafening bellow startling these rogues, and then drew out his axe accelerating the horse beneath him, making a charge down the slope just like the classical knights and ancient Slava heroes.

The sudden appearance of a Nordic bear like warrior on a skinny horse of course gave these rogues a fright, as they are nothing but a bunch of former farmers who found out one day that robbing others off their wealth is a much faster way to get rich when compared to working from day to night in the fields waiting for their crops to harvest. What a quick way to make money! Especially in these times when this place has almost became a vacuum of power with little law and order.