Chapter 380: 375: Nice Name

"Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."

-        Book of Revelation 

This battle, known as the battle of Elbasan concluded with nine hundred Romans deceased, with an additional one thousand people injured to the point that disabled them for further field actions. While the Ottomans, according to their own statistics, suffered a much greater loss counting at one thousand and five hundred deceased, six hundred men taken as captives, one thousand plus men suffering from disabilities and almost half of the remaining people have gone missing in action.

Honestly speaking every one in the Sultan's court knows what happened to those people who went on missing in actions, because who the hell would go missing in a war by unit size. So there can only be one explanation, some ambitious fellows decided to make use of this orderless and political vacuum following the defeat, turn it in to a ladder for them, and with the troops they have, they can occupy a piece of land and have a good taste of the feudal life as a semi independent lord.

When the state faces a tragedy or a catastrophe, all kind of people appears out from their hidings. Whether be it the content ones who does nothing following the tide, or the loyal ones who will fight till death for their country, or the ones that uses every single bit of chance to bargain for their self benefits like a promotion, a piece of land or monetary rewards. And there are the ambitious ones who could not wait to take off that leash and chains on him by the central government, wishing to be completely independent. Out of the four kinds of people, the fourth one deals the most damaging blow to the state. With their presence, a huge state can turn tumbling down In to several smaller pieces just like how history has proved it round and round.

The emperor Constantine proved his bravery once again to his people that night, he personally slain two enemies among the darkness, was always on the front line fending off enemy blades saving multiple people's lives, earning their gratitude, and at the same time changing their perception on the emperor that maybe, the imperator is not like what the rumours have described, as a weakling who is frequently sick and afraid of seeing blood after the battle of Constantinople.

What they did not know is that the rumours are true to some extent, the emperor has been suffering from a weird kind of migraine all along the war, and he does get nauseous at the sight of blood. But as a politician and a inspirator he knows that he cannot show this image of his in front of his soldiers, thus with an incredible amount of endurance he believed like a total normal man, without displaying a single bit of panic on his face even when blood literally spilt on to his face as he slashed the enemy before him with his iron sword.

When the battle concluded, Constantine first made a speech to these soldiers who now trully respect their ruler, promising that since he made a deal with his men, then he shall never ever disobey his own words. After this he assembled every literate person here, started collating the kill count of each and respective soldier, then writing papers after papers with the Palaigolia Autocrat's royal insignia, vowing to the men that once they returns to Constantinople, these warriors and national servicemen can redeem their rewards with this paper given to them, all their names and achievements have been already documented here to ensure fairness and justice.

Constantine spent another day doing this while the army moved on cleaning the battle field, burning the corpses and removing pollutants from the water bodies, since they are not plunderers but liberators who came here to restore and live on this piece of land. After a long day then did the emperor finally have some time to visit back his commanders, the main and decisive contributors of this war, lord Giovanni and Mauro.

Giovanni has managed to wake up from his deep sleeps under the constant efforts by his right hand man Mauro, both men have developed a superb knowledge on herbal medication and injury recovery from their long history as mercenaries appearing on only the toughest battle field. The only thing is that Giovanni now has half of his body wrapped around in linen bandages, especially his head which only has his eyes, nostrils and mouth exposing out. Giovanni looks totally different from his usual image as a feared and honoured military leader, and now it does not need to take much thinking for one to know that this man has lost his ability to continue going on combat tasks.

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Unlike Mauro, Constantine did not go up straight bursting in to laughter upon seeing Giovanni being covered in bandage, instead he let a few tears drop out of his eyes, walked briskly forward and kneeling down on one knee, holding the right hand of Giovanni gently touching the smaller wounds on his hands, then cursed himself in a repulsive tone using the Latin language. "It is all my fault, all my fault! For letting my knight, my general, my saviour, my version of Theodosian wall risking himself like this… How could I! It is all my fault."

Then the emperor turned to Mauro, still with tears in his eyes, and hissed. "Mauro, in the future I order you to have a pair of watchful eyes on Giovanni, and restrict him from charging in to the enemies like this time again."

Being caught in this sudden conversation, Mauro quickly nodded filled with awkwardness acknowledging this 'order' from Constantine, and quickly excused himself leaving the tent, fearing that he might hear some thing he should not hear, or get assigned in to doing any other tasks that he is uncappable of achieving, like what the emperor just told him…

"Your majesty." Giovanni is touched in his heart by the kind words of his employer and monarch. He struggled to sit up with his full body twitching, trying to regain power from all the injuries and anastisia, but is quickly held still by Constantine making him lay down again. "Your majesty… Do not blame yourself, trust my judgement, we had no other way of winning that unequal war except if I charge in myself with an elite squad, and use my old tactic of removing the enemy central command as soon as possible, which I call it the 'assassination' tactic…"

"I trust you, Giovanni." Constantine wiped his eyes and continued holding Giovanni's hand. "With out you, I would not even be here leading an army recovering my forefather's lands, I would have sank in to the Marmara Sea alongside with my city."

"Thank you, my majesty, I am honoured." Giovanni answered and suddenly made a few weak cough, scaring Constantine as he quickly went searching for Mauro but is stopped by Giovanni, who obviously had some thing serious to speak to him. "Your majesty, do not worry about me, I am not going to die here… At least not today, I still need to go home… Can you take this thing out from my inner clothing hanging over there?"

Constantine did what he told and is surprised to find a piece of goat skin with two illustrations being drawn on top, one being a baby, being hugged by a woman. Obviously this is not the Icon of Jesus Christ and Holy Mary, but the illustration of Giovanni's wife's Therma and his new child, drew by Giovanni himself.

The emperor examined this art piece in awe before passing it to its owner. "Well… I did not know that apart from holding blades, your hands can be so nature holding a quill as well making such illustrations that can almost be competed with those artists along the Street of Basilike…"

"Got to do some thing at night, at least, to kill off the time." Giovanni swept his hands gently across the goat leather paper, with his eyes filled with love and compassion. "This is my wife Therma… and the baby that is yet to be born… I have already planned his name, if it's a boy, he shall be named as Giovanni. If she is a girl, then her name shall be Giovanna… Either ways, I can call my child by the name of Gio Giu, sounds great right? Your Majesty?"

Constantine nodded his head and kept silent, as this emotion coming from Giovanni is some thing he never had before. Due to many factors he never had a proper family, and neither did he had a child before.

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