144 The Prince is Right

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you."

- Matthew 5:44 KJV

If Antonius, or Giovanni, or Mauro or anyone else is the commander of the Crusader of Bari, even the current Prince of Taranto, knows that it is gravely dangerous to have troops rest on the coast with low level of security on nearby enemy forts. If there is an Ottoman officer in nearby fortress that is strong witted enough, all he needed to do is to lead merely a hundred Siphai Calvaries and charge into these bunch of people lying around on the rocky beaches, leading to disastrous results.

Antonius himself does not care about these Crusaders, Constantine briefed him very clearly in the order that he is only in charge of transport and logistics but not combat support, thus he could simply leave all the troubles to the Prince of Taranto and the several noble man he brought with him.

However, the crusaders got lucky, no Ottomans showed up except for a couple of scouts, farmers and merchants.

The Crusaders readied themselves on the twenty-third of May and marched towards the fortress of Avlonya setting up blockades to all of its gates, sending an ambassador to the city trying to persuade the city guards to surrender.

The ambassador, a pretty noble knight probably walked under the city gate with two helpers behind, one carrying a sacred cross and the other one carrying the flag of Cross of Saint George. The noble waited until there is enough people crowding on the city keep, with one man dressed in lavish silk clothing also showing up in front of the crowd. The noble cleared his throat, then drew out a scroll and began reading in Greek with an arrogant tone.

"To his reverend lord of Avlonya, from his highness the Prince of Taranto, Duke of Bari, Counts of Acerra, Soleto, Matara, Conversano and Lecce…."

"We don't have enough prison cells for so many people!" A guard on the walls replied shouting, while the others bursted into laughter around him.

The ambassador staggered a bit but continued. "To the citizens of Avlonya, may Jesus Christ be praised, we are all brothers and sisters under God, walking on the land as one. We should yield our blades against each other, and together we shall repent our sins in front of Christ by going to the holy lands and rinsing our swords with the hot blood of non believers! Come! Sheathe your blades…."

"Hey!" The noble man in turban on the city keep stopped the ambassador. "We are no Christians! We are simply humble vessels under the Ottoman Sultan his most majestic Beyezid II!"

The ambassador below ignored his words and continued reading the scroll. "To the infidels of the city! If you drop your weapon now and hand over the keys of the city to the commander of the crusaders without any foolish resistance, we will be merciful enough to keep your lives, and you are permitted to keep your wealth and properties inside the city, as long as you abandon your false faith and embrace the light of Christianity!"

"By the orders of His Most Holiness Nicholas V." The ambassador closed the scroll carefully and placed it back into his sleeves and yelled upwards. "So what now! Do you concede and serve as honourable Christians and live for tomorrow, or choose to die miserably today?"

There came no response from the keep.

Just as the ambassador is there impatiently stomping his foot waiting for a reply, another older voice came from the top of the keep. "Ambassador, I am the Nishanji of this city, now go, we followers of the teachings of the Great Prophet are civilised people, we respect the rules of not killing an ambassador in our civilised world, while of course we do not know about how things work over your side, but you are stepping on our land now so please respect our rules, now go, go back to where you have came from."

The ambassador startled, it took him a while to translate the strange Greek dialect into Latin in his head, then took another while to understand the hidden meaning. Just as he is about to continue debating, he saw an archer pointing his bow towards him which sent a shiver on his back. In the end, he obeyed the old man's worlds and went back reporting to the Prince of Taranto.

Upon hearing the reply by the city, the Prince of Taranto twisted his wrinkles and did not utter a word, while another noble of Norman origins, called Tancred of Foggia, bursted into rage as he drew out his sword and bellowed out of the tent towards the city. "Old peasant! I will kill you!"

"Relax, lord Tancred." Ordered the Prince. "Shouting and yelling here will not help us take the city, strategic thinking will."

"The Prince is right." Tancred of Foggia nodded and sheathed his blade.

"What we can do now is only blockade the city." An experienced knight named Albert of Lecce brought by the Prince suggested. "We currently do not have any other choices, if we choose to pass by the city and advance to other areas, the guards of Avlonya can come out and attack us from the back, or sabotage our vulnerable supply lines."

"How about we ask that admiral of the Greeks to get us some siege engines?" The Prince of Taranto suggested. "Although he did mention that he will not engage any enemies on land, but siege engines are still part of the logistics isn't it."

"The Prince is right." Tancred of Foggia nodded.

The experienced knight Albert added on. "We can also try a psychological warfare by delivering messages to the Christian inhabitants inside the city, try to gain over their support and sympathy and pull them to our side, that can at least make things easier for us."

The Prince of Taranto sighed. "Yap I agree with you Sir Albert, that is all what we can do now without any siege equipment. I will begin writing letters of capitulation immediately and we will have archers shooting it into the city to make contact with the peasants inside."

"The Prince is right." Tancred of Foggia nodded.

The other nobles in the tent all stared at Tancred simultaneously.