1453: Revival of Byzantium

"You lied Antonius, again. I know that you shall be gone for more than three months, six months, maybe even a whole year! And after you defeat all the enemies in Epirus, you are going to spend another year over there sorting out all the affairs, rebuilding cities, constructing roads, allocating lands and villages, just like what you have done before in Drama. But how about me? How about my daughter? How about your daughter? We have been waiting for you for almost one year, you promised that you shall give her a name, but did you? She is already one year old, being nameless!"

Antonius' hands kept on fidgeting on the table as he lowered his head and dared not confront the look of Anna, each word and sentence of Anna is just like a blade being pierced in to his already fragile heart. He understands the pain Anna is feeling, and he knows the debt he owes Anna by abandoning the family for more than half a year leaving her all by herself, alone in the high castles. But he does not have a feasible solution for this, as this kind of situation is a norm for all family members of almost every single serviceman, no matter what era it is, no matter which state he is in, it is all the same.

"I…" Antonius opened his mouth lowering his head, thinking of a way to comfort his wife and at the same time, convince her to not carry on having this silly thought of joining the army as his guard, which can some times be a very dangerous post. After a while he gave up, shook his head and forced a smile on his face. "You know what Anna, some times I just hope that you are not so smart… I am refusing your proposal because I love you, you must understand that. I do not want to see you getting any possible chance of being injured, war is a cruel place, you know. The enemy's bolts and blades will not differentiate the noble and the commoners, no one is special there, every one can die… And life is harsh over there, there are no warm water for bath, there are no maids to take care of your hair, there are no cosy couch for you to lean on, you shall be riding on horse back for the most of the times…"

However, Anna just sat there remaining silent, keeping a stare on Antonius. The meaning in her eyes is pretty obvious, she is getting extraordinarily stubborn this time round not backing off by a bit. Antonius is indeed touched by his wife's attitude, and after a while he finally backed off suggesting. "How about this Anna, I cannot make you my guard, since I shall be there on the front line directly facing the hostiles for the most of the time, but I can make you and our daughter be my…. Secretary, you two shall move along with the army, and stay in fortified areas when the army is out for duty…I, I shall try to touch up with you two whenever the situation permits."

"As for our girl's name…" Antonius halted for a few seconds. "How about Eytychis? The name that has been used by the Epirote king Pyrrhus for his daughter, a great name that might offer me blessings before I start my expedition."

Anna grew happy initially from the words of her husband, getting the thing that she wants. But the moment she heard the name, she frowned and rejected this proposal. "Eytychis? Sounds like a man to me… It is a name for the whole life! You cannot just any how give her a name that does not suit her like this, how about Βαρβάρα (Varvara)? Sounds like a cute name to me."

"Barbara? Out of all names? Seriously?" Antonius shook his head, not understanding that why did his wife ask him this question when she already have the idea brewing in her head.

…

Before a campaign commences, it is not always the soldiers and generals who are getting the busiest, instead it is all the various officials, suppliers and workers who form the back bone of the country's system who have to make sure that they get all the things running first before the boots starts marching out of their campus. If the essential things like the chain of command, strategic planning, bases of supplies and functioning logistics are not being properly set up before the campaign commences, the troops would soon plunge in to a state of chaos from all the trivial affairs combined together, and be dispersed and destructed even before it steps out of the border.

The next day, Antonius gathered every one whom he has also not seen for a long time up inside the conference hall which is rebuilt on the ruins of the octagon. Abdullah is appointed as the host as he is much more familiar with the current situation in Epirus after he took over the intelligence system from the aging Anjelo, who is now completely bed ridden gasping for life every single day, looking like he does not have much more time to live when Antonius paid him a visit.

But the interrogation system left by the old man still did help Antonius dig up some interesting information from the eighteen rogues who are executed before. IT says that these people are supposedly the mercenary scouts serving under the supposed despot of Epirus Leonardo III Tocco, but the other information shows that these men are originally deployed by their monarch on to the territory of a local peasant war lord based in the ranges of Tzoumerka called Athas Bellerophon to vandalise their war capabilities and force them to become a tributary of the despot.

Though it seems like the despot have made the wrong man as their leader, the leader of these people who is referred to by them simply as 'boss'. He had a rather interesting idea, that some one referred it as a believer of the 'bigger Epirus' thinking that all of Epirus ought to be united as the frontier against the infidels and heretics, acting as the Pope's shield safe guarding the eastern door of the Apennines peninsula. Thus, he went to a little bit too far, sneaking in to the borders of Antonius thinking that he can some how take advantage of the chaos and start a gang to oppose the rule of Antonius, which became the spark to all these events.

It sounds pretty stupid, but that is what all the prisoners mentioned, some times people really do things because they firmly believe in their own world, having an unpractical idea and end up losing their very own life because of it.

Abdullah has already prepared a map that covered the entire table regarding the various political factions that are present in Epirus, and it only takes one look for people to understand how messed up the current situation in this area. Ever since the Ottoman prescience in this area dwindled as they pulled out their local garrisons which are all massacred in the defeat at Thessaloniki, the area has plunged in to a state of lawlessness.

The appointed Ottoman pasha for this region does not have enough troops to safe guard the stability, and all those anti Ottoman political powers, like the one Antonius experienced himself six years ago under the city of Avlonya. The poor pasha, whose name is no longer important in this story, is being captured in a local uprising in the city of Ioannina. The citizens asked him to write a letter to Edirne to ask for ransom, but the pasha refused to for one month, and in the end he committed suicide through starvation, keeping the border line of his loyalty towards his Sultan to the very last minute of his life.

Things did not turn for a better after the demise of the Ottoman governor, the power vacuum left by him is quickly being filled up by various people. In the south, the despot of Epirus started spreading his influence to the surrounding, successfully asking a bunch of towns and cities to pay tribute to him. In the west, the Venetians started using what ever means they have to expand their control on the Epirus shore line, they assembled a fleet at Corfu and in a few month's time, they conquered Avlonya, Saranda, Grava (Igoumenitsa), Plataria, stopping at Sarakiniko, where they built a fortress and a naval port to apply pressure on the despot of Epirus, forcing him to agree to another series of unfair trade treaties, giving up most of his right of trade within his territory to the Venetians, and granting them a small port of leased lands as the Venetian sectors, which is basically a colony with a better name; A common method adopted by the Venetians in their expansion, first they control your trade, then they control your economy, after that they influence your court politics with money and finally, turn you in to a puppet.