Who Is Zaganos Pasha?

The Romans sneakily ventured into the Ottoman camps in the mid of the night when biologically speaking everyone should be sleeping sound at the moment.

Of course, they are welcomed by no one, no nasty surprise nor pleasant anticipation came true.

The Romans approached the Ottoman camps from three directions, all three sides encountered simply nothing. It just seems like over a fortnight all the Ottomans have vanished. Pretty remarkable thing considering that they are an army coming from all walks of lives with a standing strength counting in tens of thousands.

Which only means one thing to Antonius, it shows that the Ottomans are still led under a strong and unified leadership, most likely Mehmed did not lose the control of his army even after gaining nothing from this siege. Thus he rejected and taunted at all proposals by Roman courtiers to pursue the enemies as it would be a very stupid idea doing that when you are expecting an enemy force that shows now signs of collapse, most likely there are some ambush just nearby waiting for the Roman pursuers to rush onto the spider web.

It would take some time before Antonius acquire the information that Mehmed is dead.

The numerous surges of Roman scouts and pioneers searched and ransacked through the massive Ottoman encampments that stretches all the way from the Straits of Golden Horn to the Propontis, it would indeed take some time to recon the entire camp with that little manpower the Romans have.

There even came laudable events like as the sky is completely dark, and some soldiers among the scouts have this mentality of fearing that the Ottomans might suddenly jump out of no where leaping onto them with all sorts of gruesome tattoos and colorings on their faces accompanied by hissing out in a strange alien tongue, they even mistook other scouting teams as enemies and began a friendly fire session until they later found out that they are fighting among themselves.

The entire Ottoman encampment, although seems to have a lot of torches around acting as decoy to the Romans that they are still here in the premises, but it is far from bright enough to shine all the paths and corners of the camp. And the Romans are being extraordinarily careful with every step they pace, treating every minor trace of potential threat as an enemy, it would be almost daybreak when they finish scaling the camp.

Just then, a man from the front-line scouts came across a tent, there is nothing special about the tent of course, what is unique is that it is the only tent in the entire camp that is lit bright with candles, with a clear shadow silhouette casted onto the outer cloth of layering of the tent that mimics a man inside reading and writing something. Alarmed, the men encircled the tent and pushed it down at once, revealing a man inside fully dressed in ceremonial wear grinning at the men.

"I will not resist, please bring this harmless being to your commander, and I will explain everything in detail." The man, whose real identity is Abdullah, carefully explained to the incoming men raising both of his hands up showing that he has no weapons nor hostility.

Being cautious, the Roman soldier still dragged the man up and searched his entire body coming into contact with all the weird part in the process checking if he is an assassin causing the latter to howl and whimped loud enough to scare off the birds in the night, causing another round of misunderstanding as the Romans went thinking that this suspicious man before him is trying to pass some signals which took Abdullah a little more time to explain, then Abdullah is brought forward to meet Antonius watched by pairs after pairs of cautious eyes.

The suspicion is eventually revolved when Antonius met Abdullah.

Antonius is utterly surprised when he saw the familiar face of Abdullah, of course, and he asked. "Abdullah? Why are you here? I almost thought that you have…."

"Have what?"

"Well, you used to tell us stories of all those methods of torture back then, so you know, after you got taken as captive we all thought that…"

"… I see. Don't worry, it isn't always case that people who are taken captive are treated badly, especially for me who is a person of some value to the Sultan." Abdullah almost laughed out loud after hearing Antonius's words, but still managed to control his temptations and explained.

The short period of embarrassment between the two old friends as they soon gave each other a warm hug and a pat on the back, then soon turned to discuss serious matters, where Abdullah briefly introduced Antonius all the ongoing situations he knows among the Ottoman higher ups without leaving or changing any details behind. Antonius on the other hand, obviously hearing all the fuss and commotions in the higher ups of the Ottoman nobles, gaped through out while listening as he had never ever imagined that the struggle in the Ottoman court can be so… exciting.

"So, you mean that…. All the Ottoman troops have withdrawn from here? Back to Adrianopolis to handle their own affairs? Will not come back again?" Antonius sniffed and wiped his bitter cold nose under the vigorous night wind and asked frowning. Noticing that his friend standing over there is also shaking in cold after leaving the warm tent and eyeing at him, Antonius tittered feeling uneased and covered Abdullah with a random blanket he found on the floor in the stable.

Abdullah replied scowling and bearing the unbearable smell of horse dungs on the blanket. "For that, I am not sue, my friend."

"Why?"

"I am pretty sure that the troops of the other pashas, especially those under Candarli Halil Pasha, will not come back, but I am not sure about Zaganos Pasha…"

"Wait… I know the name Candela Halil, but who is the supposed Zaganos Pasha?"

Abdullah felt a little bit absurd for Antonius's question, he rolled his eyes and asked back. "My friend, do you know who the commander in chief of your enemy is for the last two month?"

"Yes, it is the Sultan of the Ottomans."

"… Well in a way you are right also, but it is actually this man called Zaganos Pasha."

"Ohhh…"