Chapter 208: 203: Freesia

"A person whose head is bowed and whose eyes are heavy cannot look at the light."

-        Christine de Pizan

Antonius prowls through the street constantly having the feeling that he is being watched by people through those holes and openings on the wooden walls. 

If it is not for the sunny day, cozy Mediterranean wind and chilling beach, Antonius would feel that they are walking on a haunted land. 

Finally, they saw this old man lying there on mat laid with straw grass under the roof top lifelessly thin to the state that his ribcage is barely observable. 

"Old sir." Antonius approached this old man. "Would you kindly help me with a favor?" 

The old man did not reply. 

"Hey, excuse me?" 

The old man still did not answer.

Feeling uneasy, Antonius bent down and nudged the old man, but he still never replies lying there lifelessly. 

"Dead." Julian felt his hand palm on the old man's ribcage and then felt his finger under his nose. "Dead just recently, lying here, starved to death… The most painful kind of death that one can ever experience." 

Antonius startled backwards by a bit, and then remained speechless for a few seconds paying respect. 

"Admiral…" Abraham came back with his scouts after a brief search. "The inhabitants of this village have all hid themselves down in the local church… A few hundred of them, squeezed themselves in every single corner of that chantry without leaving a single space behind except the space surrounding the alter."

"Why am I not surprised." Antonius shrugged his shoulder. "Why? Do I look like an invader, an aggressor, a pirate to them?" 

The others looked at each other without replying. 

"Fine." Antonius sighed. "I shall go to the chantry myself. 

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The men then went on going to the local church, which is not hard to find as although nothing as compared to those churches Antonius he has seen back in Constantinople and Genoa, it is still probably the most well decorated building on this entire island, with its lavish white marble walls and pillars resembling that of a antiquate Greek architecture, perfectly keeping the styles of the building thousand years back perfectly on the island isolated by sea.

This church itself, forms a strong contrast with the buildings and houses surrounding it with the rest all made of plain straws and wood with areas exposed and looking like it can come crumbling down at any single second. But there are nothing to be surprised or strange about, in these days when the development of science and renaissance has not been exploding, people thrust their money onto the only thing they can rely on mentally and physically.

Like this time.

A whole town of people, near a thousand of them, squeezed inside the church shivering as if the sky has came falling down with those pirate looking people coming here to ransack them, starved, cold and ill, they felt that today it is finally the time for them to be called back to God.

The gate to the church is swung wide open as the clergies failed to stop these 'pirates' from coming in. Women and children scream and yells in fear as these 'pirates' came gushing in, but a while later to their surprise, instead of the usual asking for ransom and taking hostage or slaves thing, these pirates came into the church and stood there in two lines guarding the gate and the passage ways like they are waiting for some one big to arrive.

Then, Antonius entered with his crew of captains, dressed in full ceremonial armour decorated with red tassels and Orthodox church coat of arms, the war banner of double headed eagle representing Constantine XI himself at the left, the Orthodox holy cross of Chi Rho on the right, and the purple flag of the True Roman empire in the middle.

The only disappointment being that there are no back ground music as Antonius and his crew enters.

The noise of the crowd of local inhabitants soon quietened down as Antonius walks past them, realising that these people look more like knights and lords instead of regular pirates that comes paying them visits once per well after the ineffectiveness of the Roman navy.

Antonius climbed straight up to the altar in the gasps of every one watching, and sat right on the staircase with one leg lying over the other leg. He watched these people, all ill nourished, seating down there looking at him with the sentiments of hatred for the intrusion, fear for the unknown and suspicion at his identity.

After scanning through each and every of their emotions briefly, Antonius had a brief idea of what to say, cleared his throat and opened his mouth speaking in a still not so fluent Greek.

"Good day, each and every one of you, I believe that according to every new lord or governor there is a tradition for a round of inspection in his lands talking to the peasants understanding their current conditions, listen to their problems, explore his demesne chasing around the bandits like a knight or something… But I do not think I have the need to do it."

"… Greetings, I am your new appointed governor, or in your language, the stratēgos of Archipelago. Tell me, what do you need? I can grant you three things today." 

The people beneath him exchanged sights and started gossiping with each other, but non of them came up to request for something, and when Antonius caught sight with them, he can see through their eyes that they still have a high amount of suspicion to him. It is normal, Antonius understands them, this crooked place have not had a governor since like a few decade ago, and his arrival is indeed a little bit sudden. 

Thus, Antonius is not impatient, he still have lots of time, and started drinking wine from his water flask. 

After around half an hour sitting there, there are finally some response from the crowd.

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