1453: Revival of Byzantium

It is Antonius' first time taking his tongue on a bite on the wolfen meat, and instantly his senses and taste buds told him that he definitely would like it. But still he finished the meat offered to him out of respect. Yuri and the Varangians seems to not be first timers like Antonius in eating wolf meat, as seen from the portion they have already consumed.

The villagers jeered at Antonius' behaviour, saying that if he, as a student, wants to immerse in to the life style as a son of the mountains, then he must have a good taste on the meat of wolves. Apostolos explained to his superior that this is a common practise passed on since ages ago among the people in Epirus and Albania. In their local dialect of this village, they literally referred the people of Epirus as wolf eaters and the villagers are most likely descendants of the migrants from the themata of Dyrrhachium a few decades ago, explaining some of their habits. 

Being aroused with interest Antonius stayed behind while the kids went back to the hostel, asking the villager more about the heritage and land scape of Epirus. The villagers shared all of what they know, thinking that it is just a student who is interested on the knowledge of their neighbours. But Antonius is thinking other wise, he is compiling information to think of a place to break through the mountainous defences by the regional war lords in Epirus, and an effective route that is able to support a large troop movement.

Soon Antonius felt like he could not take the smell of the smoked wolf meat any longer and excused himself to go back to the hut and record down what he has just heard, deciding that the border zone shall be his next stop in the expedition.

Upon returning to the hut, Antonius felt that his belly is now tumbling as his stomach is battling the unfamiliar meat. Feeling uneasy Antonius remembered the jar of wine the girl has offered to him an hour ago, with the fine serving as a soother the belly soon stopped groaning and went back to peace. Antonius thanked the girl in his heart and finished the rest of the wine in the jar and went back to his bed to continue reading that book.

The celebration outside slowly quietened down, the villagers went back to their dispersed houses as they still have work to do the next morning before sun light shows up. The Varangians went back to their bunks following what the villagers have requested, and Yuri sat back there on the ground before Antonius' hut performing his guard duty, but this time with no weapon in his arms. A bunch of near two meter tall fat giants are already terrifying enough, and a bunch of giants with axes look even more gruesome that shall definitely cast them in a bad light.

Antonius stayed until mid night, and finally he could not bear the drowsiness further. The owner of this hut is already weary and concerned about him burning so many precious candles in the night, and thus Antonius blew off the candle and laid down on the bed. But it seems like he has drank way too many wine just now which caused him to have difficulties in sleeping. After a while he gave it up and started mediating while looking at the moon, thinking about what he has seen on this journey, what he has learnt about his people and the geography of this region.

The door of the hut is suddenly opened with a cracking sound which immediately alerted Antonius, he eyed the direction of the gate with caution while touching for his dagger beneath the pillow while pretending to sleep. Who will disturb him at this hours? Yuri won't disturb him unless there are extremely vital messages like an enemy attack, the two kids wont come and disturb his sleep in the risk of getting a slap on the backside, then who else?

There are only three kinds of persons that likes to give people surprise visits late at night; One is the mother checking on whether the kids are really sleeping, two is the thieves, and the last is the assassin. Just as Antonius is still thinking why Yuri haven't sound an alert, cursing that this unreliable guard has probably entered his slumber land, he saw the big broad head of Yuri popping in to the room again from the door with the rays of moon light, which immediately stroke the caution and suspicion off from the admiral's heart.

There seems to be some one else outside the door with Yuri, as Yuri whispered saying things like his master has already slept, it is not the appropriate time to disturb him. But the visitor with a girl voice seems to still be persistent and urged that she needs to see the visitor, with some very important stuff to tell him. After a while of stand off, Yuri seems to have no choice and let the visitor in.

Upon entering the room, the visitor shut the door closed behind her and approached Antonius' bed staring at him, who is still pretending to be asleep. The girl stood over there silently for a few seconds, muttering some thing in her mouth that sounded like a piece of prayer from the bible, then drew a cross before her chest. All of these things just made the scene look even creepy as hell, and it is worsened when the sky decided to play a joke on Antonius, shifting the clouds covering the moon away, casting an eerie spot light on to the face of the girl.

The girl's body started shivering from the nervousness, she did not even realise that the man's eyes are almost fully open looking out for what she shall do next. In the shock of the later, the girl slowly started to undress herself, removing the belt of her linen cushions with a pair of shivering hands. She looked desperate under the cast of the moon light, but her audience Antonius is even more shocked seeing this. He has heard of tales and fantasies since young like nobles encountering women who fell in to a romantic love with them because of their handsomeness and valour.

But certainly, Antonius is not that kind of person who would always have the urge to sow one's seeds across the land wherever he goes, thus he immediately stopped pretending to be asleep and climbed up from his bed, controlled his voice and shouted. "Hey! What do you think you are doing?!"

The girl seems to be equally as shocked by the sudden change of event, one can see from her look that she did not expect this kind of thing to happen in her script. Not knowing what to do she got a panic attack, and then squatted on the ground with her hands covering her face and started weeping and sobbing. Now it is Antonius who is more panicked, as there are two things that Antonius hate and get frustrated with very easily, first is the cry of a baby which most fathers in the world can understand how frustrating it is, and the second one is a woman weeping.

Comfort her? Sure, but in what approach should he take. He is not the one at fault, instead he just got woken up in the mid of the night listening to the cries of a woman whom he do not know for absolutely nothing, but still as a gentle man he cannot vent his emotions on a woman, so he forced a smile and started comforting her with a tone as gentle as possible, asking her whether she is being forced or threatened by others in to doing such things. But the girl just kept on shedding tears with out replying to Antonius' question.

Then Antonius saw big broad head of Yuri popping up behind the door again, taking a peek on what is going on inside here. When the two pairs of eyes met Yuri swiftly shut the door and went back to his guarding position outside, only to find Apostolos already there, apparently attracted by the commotion happening here as he lives in an independent shelter not far away. After having a brief understanding of what has just happened, the bold old man sighed shaking his head, and went in to the room of the admiral despite Yuri warning him repeatedly not to do so.

Antonius is still having a headache with these crying, and he almost spit out curse words seeing some one enters thinking that it must be Yuri. To his surprise he saw the still suspicious but at least smart enough Apostolos, filled with doubts he quickly climbed down the bed and ushered Apostolos to come forward to a corner and asked him on what the hell is going on here, and why is this lass in his room in the middle of the night.