Chapter 457 - What Should I Do To You

Fisnik finally realised that this man before him is the de facto ruler of a kingdom, the supposedly the second in charge of the Roman empire and he has the ability to wipe out anyone who disobeys his instruction and really make him fed up. Although the Caesar has not yet punished anyone standing here heavily to the point of an execution when they make a mistake before, but it does not mean that he does not have the power to do so, it is just that he does not like it. 

"Anjelo is right all the time, really, it is my mistake to not heed his advice." Antonius made a slight snigger at himself. "He has always said that appointing someone without the skills and capabilities to do a job can always led to a disastrous result, and today's event proved that he is right."

The anxiety and dread within Fisnik grew even larger as cold sweat started dripping down his forehead on to the carpet. He gave a peek towards his sides hinting towards his colleagues to come and step out for the rescue. Most of the commanders simply stood over there, though still there are some who have a good personnel relationship who stepped out of the line. However, before they could spit a word, they saw their Caesar Antonius smiling gently at them with his arms folded. After giving it a thorough thought, these commanders too went back to their position. 

Antonius turned to Alexios and asked. "How is your investigation? Anything interesting you could find? I believe that there ought to be a whole pile of things documented." 

"Yes, your majesty." Alexios sighed within himself knowing that he has been pinpointed to do this kind of work that can offend the others. "I found out that prior to this accident, the chosen troopers who got spare coins could pay Fisnik a bribe in order to skip their guard duty and leave it to the others, hence many relatively poorer troopers who cannot afford the bribe had to do repeated guard duty for days consecutively. Many of them are way too tired and so the entire team would often agree that they can just get to a quiet spot and sleep for a while, which inevitably caused a superb loophole for the Ottoman infiltrators to get across it." 

Fisnik's hands on the ground shook more and more violently with each word of Alexios acting like a war hammer pounding directly onto his heart. 

"Call me Maximos!" Antonius ordered to his guards to bring in the second in command of the guard.

A minute later Maximos came into the tent too and upon seeing his boss over there kneeling on the ground, he too realised what is going on and kneeled down as well knowing that all those pessimistic thoughts and worries within his head might come true immediately. 

"What happened to your shoulder?" 

"It is nothing, your majesty. It is a slash from the Ottoman infiltrators when I was trying to block them from entering the site of trebuchets, but I failed terribly." 

"Stand up, there is no need for you to kneel." Antonius asked his guard to carry a stool for Maximos to seat on and continued his enquiry. "Please, do tell me Maximos, that where was your commanding officer located at the time of the accident?" 

"He…" Maximos hesitated as he peeked towards Fisnik. "I believe that he did lead a group of guards into the battlefield at that point of time as the first batch of reinforcements, and he was there also to speculate the total loses as well patrolling the grounds. I believe that after making sure that the place is safe, he went back to the headquarters to submit his report…"

"Thank you, Maximos, please take care of yourself and recover soon." Antonius smiled and encouraged the vice commander, letting him leave before turning towards Khalid. "Khalid, did you and Abraham come across Fisnik when you two arrived at the battlefield yesterday?" 

"No, your majesty." 

"And what you have discovered?" 

Khalid felt uneasy at the question knowing that his answer might lead to something, seeing his pal's dilemma Abraham stood up and continued. "Admiral, we found a chain of hoof prints mixed together with that of human's, a few pieces of burnt cloths and armours, with some horse dungs that are still hot by the time we found it which make us believe that those bandits were there all the while watching us trying to find them until the very last minute." 

"Thank you, Khalid and Abraham, you and your unit's quick responsiveness proved to me that you never ever neglected your training and standard of procedure as Roman cavalries." Antonius continued holding that peculiar grin on his face and finally turned to Fisnik still kneeling on the ground. "Now, Fisnik, do you have an idea who have you let free just now?" 

The atmosphere in this camp dropped to a minus degrees following this question. 

Helio could not resist himself stepping out of the line again and kneeled down on the ground together with Fisnik, pleading. "Your majesty! We all know that Fisnik is an arsehole who make mistakes here and there! But please! He has served you for almost ten years! And he made these mistakes purely out of unintentional reasons, I beg you, your majesty, pardon him for one more time counting on his years of service and efforts!"

Seeing this, the others including Julian, Khalid, Abraham, the prince from Moskva, Borislav all came out and plead to Antonius for mercy. While Alexios, Halfdan and Fjodor and Apostolos continued standing there with a stern face.

However, Antonius did not make any response to these pleads for mercy, instead he went back to his seat and silently sat there with that same old grin looking at these people kneeling before him. After a while these voices quietened down and Antonius still did not make an official reply, leaving this tent with nothing but anxiety and awkwardness.