章 132: But Their Legend Lives On

Perhaps the only thing which has changed is his mind, and the people around him.

The little kid named Francesco who might not have left a deep impression to people, always following him around, acting his steward although Antonius has already recovered his social status as a free man, forever closed his eyes at the age of eighteen. Now he lays in the bottom of the Aegean flowing with the tide of the ocean.

The Norse man who was bluffing about slaying a wyvern and climbing the roots of Yggdrasil, named Harald, is needless to say dead on field, his body has been stabbed, stampeded and mutilated beyond shape. Antonius could only tell that the pile of …. Is his varangian Harald by identifying his Scandinavian talisman. It is him that caused Harald to become like this, but he believes it is ultimately the best solution he had at that moment.

Beside the two of them, countless faces, voices, images and shadows of the deceased since he began his career as a mercenary started forming up in Antonius' mind, which most of them lost their lives after he took this bloody contract protecting this bloody city against those bloody foes which he once considered sitting ducks on the seas when he was a pirate.

When reality hits it hits hard.

The snoring beside Antonius woke him up, apparently his buddy Abdullah has fallen into deep sleep after consuming his sumptuous dinner scratching his full again abdomen. This further deterred any attempts of Antonius trying to sleep on that haystack. He wanted to push Abdullah aside and wake him up but immediately aborted the thought when he is about to reach out his hands after remembering how pathetic his friend was after that long time of mistreatment in the Sultan's dungeon.

Antonius continued staring at the night sky, glittering stars slowly took over the pale sky and the celebration in a distance slowly quietened down. The only sources of sound now come from Abdullah, and perhaps the irritating owls in the background, giving Antonius a place to think about himself.

He is no longer that illiterate happy merry man living off the coast of Anatolia looking for loots and plunders, he is now a man who have learnt literature, writing, great work of great minds in the past and most importantly, he now knows how to think. Once a man knows how to think, it makes him a completely different person from the past.

"What is going to become of me?" Antonius murmured to himself.

Abdullah continued snoring.

With the help of the dim moon light Antonius looked around and found a tree standing at a distance away, with an axe nearby, possibly used for chopping woods for burning fuel. He jumped down the haystack, walked towards the tree, picked up the axe and prayed whispering.

"Jesus Christ be praised, please offer me guidance, if I, Antonius De'Ricci, is able to live a life as great as that of Julius Caesar and Saint Constantine, bless me with the power and strength to chop down this tree with one strike. If I don't deserve that kind of life, the tree shall stand firm."

With that, Antonius stroked at the trunk of the tree hard with all of his might. However, it remained standing.

Just as Antonius is about to taunt himself for acting crazy in the night and is about to walk away, the tree slowly came coming down as if there is another force behind it. It fell onto the ground creating a deafening sound which scared the irritating owls away, and also woke Abdullah up as he almost jumped down from the Haystack.

Abdullah turned his head looking at Antonius, who is staring blankly at the fallen tree.

"What are you doing? Really? Chopping down a tree in the middle of the night? Are you out of your mind?"

Antonius did not reply, instead he bursted into a chain of laughter echoing across the area.

Now Abdullah is truly thinking if his friend has something off in his head.

…

The next day, inside the Government building of Constantinople located in Kynegion.

Antonius is seated there staring at George Sphrantzes' desk undisrupted by any outside world influence, while the latter sits there doing his paper totally not giving a damn about a man sitting right in front of him eyeing him for the entire morning, having something in his mind to discuss, while George simply rejects by telling him repeatedly that he is terribly busy at the moment.

This continued until noon, until a senator called Andronikos Laskaris could no longer take it.

"My dear Kouropalates…." Andronikos approached Antonius with a shy smile on his face. "It is lunch hours… Would you like to lend me the honour of accompanying me to have lunch together?"

"I am not hungry." Antonius replied, maintaining his stare on George Sphrantzes.

Andronikos Laskaris is short of words.

"Leave it, Andronikos." George Sphrantzes said while calculating the collected taxation report submitted by the governor of Peloponnese lowering his head. "I have tried to move him away countless times."

Andronikos let out a guffaw trying to cover his embarrassment and went away.

Antonius just sat there observing George Sphrantzes like how first timers scrutinise a panda. They have known each other prior to this meeting since the surprise siege of the fortress of Rumelihisarı, and it can be said that they worked pretty well maintaining a stable law and order inside the city, and what makes George Sphrantzes even more precious is that he managed to amend and gather enough supplies for the entire army even during the most difficult times when they are running short of supplies and the aggressors launching one after another assaults everyday. But even then, the entire chain of logistics never collapsed.

However, it is since then that the ties and communication between the two men have dwindled, all because of one woman – Therma Sphrantzes.

George, as the father, has not learnt of his daughter's special bold relationship with a Genoese mercenary leader until two weeks back taking advantage over a victory on field and some alcohol which boosted the wits of Giovanni, he decided to take the chance to block the doors of the house of Sphrantzes, proposed to Therma with a banquet of flowers which got knows where did he find it from in the middle of the tundra outside the walls.

How did it end?

George Sphrantzes remained calm throughout and politely rejected the proposal by Giovanni due to 'health problems' of Therma and excused himself from staying any longer because of 'busy disruptive affairs' and dismissed the crowd whistling outside, shutting the gate leaving Giovanni outside.

Since then, the relationship between George Sphrantzes and the two Genoese men have became a little tense.

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