Chapter 206: 201: Poverty

Antonius' sailors dispersed scattering around finding clues regarding this case, while the rest assembled in teams with shovels and fire woods instructed by Antonius to ignite the corpses and bury them after taking out the only baby that has survived. Such actions can effectively stop any plague from spreading, and also leave these infants in peace without having to suffer the bits of rodents and insects. 

"You know, admiral." Anjelo approached Antonius seeing the latter's stern face. "You might not be able to accept it, but such things are pretty normal in these ages, you know, dark times, I have seen pretty lot of this throughout my years." 

Antonius continued digging remaining silent. 

"Do not let such sights misguide your mind, you will see misdeeds and sins done by people far worse than this." 

"I know." Antonius finally replied. "I know Anjelo, but as long as I am here, I cannot just stand here sing a few words of sympathy and leave forgetting about what I have seen, as the lord governing this place, I must sort this thing out, and my pure conscientiousness simply cannot allow such things to happen under my eye lips." 

Anjelo said no more. 

A few minutes later, Antonius' men came back dragging a man who seems like he almost peed in his pants from his wet trousers. He keeps screaming in a dialect Greek that almost irritated Antonius' sailors enough to give him a tight slap in his face.

"Is this man the culprit who did all of this?" Antonius threw his shovel to Anjelo and asked pulling a bit of his cutlass out of the scabbard. 

"Aye admiral." The sailor replied panting up and down kicking the man in his knees making him kneel. "kneel you crook, the man standing in front of you is the lord of these isles!" 

Catching a glimpse of the blade's reflected light, the man kneeled instantly smashing his head against the mud spitting out a chain of Greek language rapidly that no one can understand. 

"Ah for God's sake someone please help me translate what the hell is this God damn twit talking about." Antonius lost his patience as he sticked the scabbard into the ground, which sent another shiver to the man. 

"He is asking you to have mercy on him." Julian took up the job as a native of Constantinople. 

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"Mercy?" Antonius lifted up one side of his eye brow and questioned back in a questioning tone holding the pommel of his cutlass. "My princeps are simple, those who kills shall pay back with their own lives, what kind of mercy is he talking about?" 

Upon seeing the lord's facial expression and hearing the translation, the man wept even louder reacting more vigorously spitting out another chain of words in self protest. 

"He said that he did this only because he had no choice, the world and God gave him no other options other to abandon his own child, he has reasons behind his actions and beg you to give him a chance to explain." 

"His own child?" Antonius frowned. "Even wolves do not eat its cubs… This man is even worse than a wolf, but still fine, let him talk, I am interested." 

The man began his version of story sobering kneeling on the mud. It turns out that he is the father of that baby surviving weeping baby, who had to despise his own child because if he keeps it, his family is going to get starved to death as there is simply not enough food to feed an additional mouth. He went on mentioning that he is not the only one doing it around here, the other folk in his town is also doing such deeds.

Antonius found his words untrusting and ridiculous. "How many people do you have in your town? Did it surpass a thousand people? Around two hundred house holds. And you have already dumped a dozen babies over here? Do You expect me to trust your words?"

"I did not lie! Lord!" The man wiped the mixture of mucus, tear and saliva offed his face. "This kind of things have been going on in this place since like a decade ago!"

"A decade ago? Discarding babies?" Antonius is truly shocked.

"Aye admiral." Anjelo sighed remarking. "It is hard to believe for city dwellers like you who rarely sees how life goes on in rural areas outside the cities. The lives of people over here are extremely fragile, these people are always on the verge of starving trying to find where their next meal is, and when a plague, famine, or in this island's case, a bad catch of fish in this year, it can almost be certain meaning the village's doom, sometimes in extreme cases the entire village can die off without even being noticed by outsiders until many months later."

Antonius could not believe what he has just heard from the old man, these words and its meaning is far more impactful in the ears of the twenty six years old man who has yet a lot of things to learn. 

"O' Good lord!" The man looked at Antonius praying. "It is not like we want to do this deliberately, but if we insist on keeping him, another of my child which is already capable of helping out with the chores are going to die! We simply cannot afford to keep the child! Especially with this damn war going on the situation over here is becoming extremely wicked… This week the tax collectors from Constantinople will arrive collecting taxes from us, and next week it will be the Ottoman Turks coming here to collect tax… Sometimes we too have no idea who is governing over us! And if we do not pay those taxes giving them grains, fishes, and other products, they will rob and ransack our food! We had no choice!" 

"What about those riches in the town?" Antonius asked back. "They never cared about you?"

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