1453: Revival of Byzantium

Inside the sword's room of the castle, Skanderbeg is reading the letter handed to him by his procurator with the light through a tiny barred window, frowning as he tries to recognise the words in the letter which is being written in a rather bizarre way; The first half of the letter is well decorated classical literature writing style, using the tales and quotes of many ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, written in an elegant court calligraphy technique. While the second half of the letter, is being written in a more common kind of language with less garnishing context, with a much more straight forward way of speaking and of course, the elegant court calligraphy is gone too, being replaced with a not so tidy hand writing.

"I did not know that the Caesar of the Romans had two scribes to write one letter…." Skanderbeg remarked, trying to understand this letter written in Greek. "I can use the first half of the letter as a sample when teaching my son Greek… Have you read this letter yet, Georgius?"

"No letter shall be opened by my hands before you read it, your highness."

"What a pity, it is a pretty interesting letter, I must say." Skanderbeg took a glance at his procurator with a smirk hidden behind his beard. "The Caesar of the Romans are proposing to me an alliance against the 'common enemies', what do you think?"

A migraine started forming up in the procurator's head as he instantly realised who might the common enemy being mentioned in this letter mean, but still he acted like he knows nothing and replied. "Must be the Ottomans, the Caesar must be aiming to completely destroy the infidels in Adrianople, so he needs us to help him pin down the forces of Abbas pasha in Bulgaria…"

"He is proposing an alliance with me, saying that we can split the entire land of Epirus in to two portions, chasing the other unwanted foreign influences away from these lands." Skanderbeg waved the letter in his hand. "He described the situation now in Epirus is like that of a pot of soup sandwich, and it has the trend of becoming worse with the intervention of unwanted foreign powers. So he suggested that I should take up the responsibility with him to advance my troops in to the region, stabilise the situation ease the burden of the people there, chase out the unwanted foreign presence there and restore a proper government to Epirus."

The procurator gave a slightly embarrassed grin, rubbed his hands and answered. "But you know, my lord, I am a Venetian, you should not have told me about this."

"But you are my procurator, I trust you, and I need your knowledge, I need your experience, I need your help in advising me. Tell me, Georgius, what do you think about this proposal by the Caesar of Thessaloniki? Should I form up with him against the Doge of the Venetians? I need a response, please help me like you always have, Georgius."

Hearing these words coming from the lord of Albania, procurator Đorđe Pelinovi turned serious too. "My liege, if you are asking me as a Venetian, then I got to strongly oppose this piece of proposal from the Caesar of Thessaloniki, because I know that this shall greatly upset Doge Cristoforo Moro, he is an authoritarian kind of leader and shall not see Venetian assets in Epirus getting damaged. In fact, I can guarantee that he shall dispatch a fleet and a group of mercenaries to aid the various Epirus factions. The Caesar of Thessaloniki met not be affected as much, since he is able to solidify the security of Aegean with his fleet, but how about you? My liege? How about you? What are you going to do, if the Venetians place an embargo, seal your port, and ransack your coast…"?

"I do not want a Venetian's opinion." Skanderbeg suddenly interrupted staring at the window. "I want your opinion, Georgius."

"If that is the case." Đorđe Pelinovi took a deep breathe and gave the lord he serves a difficult look. "From my own perspective, I hope that the state of Albania can stop being a state that is always seeking help from foreign powers, and in the process giving up many of her own interest; The time has changed, the Ottoman threat overshadowing over our head is now gone, the entire Balkans has been divided in to various warring state, meaning that law and order between states have entirely vanished. We need to march out of the mountains, just like what the Serbians did a hundred plus years ago. We need to take this chance to stop taking our usual defensive stance, we need to go out of Albania, expand our interest, and fight for our position in the future; If we miss this chance of having an alliance with the Greeks, we shall eventually keep our position as a small state and…"

"Georgius, what do you think is the reason behind the proposal of alliance by the Caesar of Thessaloniki?" Skanderbeg sat down on a wooden barrel beside the walls, holding a dull blade, playing with it and interrupted the procurator in his speech once again.

Đorđe Pelinovi stammered and continued. "…Because you have became the icon of all Christian leaders warring against the infidel Ottoman aggressions for more than two decades, always victorious and always staying on the front line, with a piece of army that has probably the most amount of experience. If he manages to get you in to his alliance, he can potentially call for the support of all the warriors and crusaders in to his action, with you as the spiritual statue…"

"That is right, I can be the spiritual back bone giving them a surge in confidence and morales, because I fought some minor conflicts with the Ottomans and managed to achieve victory by luck." Skanderbeg nodded and interrupted his procurator, for the third time today. "But the Caesar of Thessaloniki did not realise one thing, do you know what it is Georgius?"

"What is it?" asked Đorđe Pelinovi.

"I am nothing but merely a humble old man, that happened to rule over a duchy famed for her mountains, eagles and warriors. People see me as an icon, forever victorious, the defender of faith. But what they do not realise is that all of my power came from the people, the mass public of Albania. All these achievements in the past, all the victories they say I achieved, is given to me by my people. The people granted these victories to me, because they knows that they are fighting to defend their country and if they lose, their country shall be a no more and their families shall be enslaved; While I am just a plain old man who happened to know some tactics and is lucky enough to lead these bunch of persistent natural warriors."

"If they are going to be drafted before autumn, leave behind the crops in their lands for their wives to harvest all by themselves, cross the borders to fight an offensive, an invasive war, do you think that they shall fight this war willingly, giving me the same kind of might and effort like last time? No I do not think so Georgius."

"Indeed." The procurator thought for a while and sighed. "I am sorry my lord, I am still having the mentality of a Venetian, forgetting that for our state still got to consider the element of agriculture seasons when being engaged in wars and conflicts…"

"How I admire, some times even envy you Venetians and that young Caesar of Thessaloniki." With a force Skanderbeg pierced the dull blade in to the ground beside the wooden barrel. "You people have all the natural ports, big cities, centre point of trade. That young Caesar of Thessaloniki have all the coins and gold tickling in to his treasuries through the Aegean trade, letting him afford to feed a professional standing army counting more than ten thousand men able to march off at any time under his command with out the need of disrupting normal agriculture activities. While for me, the Duchy of Albania has no such abilities."

The procurator listened silently, after a while the room went back to an awkward silence, with only the rowdy voice of the kid in the back ground. "Understood, my lord. I shall compose a letter at once to the Caesar of Thessaloniki explaining our difficulties, and reject his…"

"No, we are going to accept his proposal." Skanderbeg interrupted his man for the fourth time. "We are going to form up an alliance with him, but state that we shall not be marching our troops in to Epirus , instead the Duchy of Albania shall be focusing on facing the pressure coming from the Venetians, and tell him, he can take what ever land he wants, but he must cede the areas where there is an Albanian majority, and allow the other Albanians who have been living under Ottoman suppression to come back if they wish."