Power of Quid

Thanks to Constantine's charisma and diplomatic skills, the soldiers around him managed to regain some morales. However, he forgot one thing, one rule of war that might get him killed, as a commander leading a battle, he is now dangerously exposed to the eyes of the Ottomans. His waving double eagle flag is just like a perfect signal target for Ottoman artilleries to pounder on.

Zaganos Pasha who is inspecting the frontline whipped out his monocular spy glass and saw a man with a royal purple cloak waving the infidel's flag in broad day light together with a group of soldiers and some other people around him who are donned in tunic and cloak. One does not need any further thinking to realise the true identity of this man, there can only be a few men inside the city that has the rights and honour to wear purple and judging by the information that Ottoman espionage brought several weeks ago, it can only be one man, and killing this man would decisively impact the duration of the siege.

"Canons!.... Prepare yourself….! Fire!" With the orders sent, thirty canons of all calibres all aiming one direction let out their choir of fire and flash, followed by a thick layer of smock and shrieking of canon shells tearing through the air propelling towards Constantine. If one of these shells find the way onto the wall and find its way to Constantine, he would be most probably torn into half.

However, George Sphrantzes noticed the canon movements of the Ottoman artillery formations and immediately realised something is wrong. He immediately leapt forward and pushed Constantine down to the ground leaning against the battlements. Then they heard the soaring of shells pounding onto the walls and flying into the city. After a round of bombardment, the two men looked back and found that most soldiers and senators who were standing there are already choking in their own blood, or guards hugging their maimed body parts yelling for help.

All this chain of events happened so fast that Constantine is still quite blur when he got up and saw the things around him, but George Sphrantzes by his side and Julian who survived by standing next to the tower instantly bolted into action and dragged the muddled emperor down the walls. His imperial Diadem tossed onto the ground stained with dust and imperial purple cloak torn into half, but still luckily he survived.

Julian and George dragged the emperor into a keep hide, where the emperor then realised what is going on and broke into a state of trauma as he is soaked in cold sweat and violently shivering. What makes things even worse is that now the emperor is unable to neither talk nor react to anything in the outside world. White discharge began flowing down the corner of his mouth.

Julian and George looked at each other, then they decided that it is best not to let others see the emperor in this state. Julian hurried out of the keep seeking a carriage while George stays behind tending to the conditions.

But miraculously, Constantine himself recovered to a normal state on the way to the palace. He regained his consciousness and looked around with an unconcentrated pair of eyes seemingly not knowing what was going on just now. Then Constantine felt a sharp pain at the top of his head, so bad that he has to sit down cover it up, unable to speak nor move once again.

"What should we do?" Julian stared at George Sphrantzes.

"Why are you asking me?" George Sphrantzes retorted.

"Because you are the smart one…?"

"Ah…come on, is everyone in the mégas droungarios' navy illiterate?"

"You can say that…"

"…"

Julian climbed out of the carriage and shouted out to the driver to turn left and go to Monastery of Christ Pantokrator to seek treatment.

…

Meanwhile, Antonius is scrutinising hard on a piece of brown brown paper sheet trying to figure out what the hell is written on there. It seems easy to Antonius when he first thought of the idea of learning Latin as he is a native Latin speaker, but soon he came to realise how hard it is to put these squabbling alphabets that all look like tadpoles to him.

These Latin words just do not make any sense to him. Doubts run through his head more than ever before, he would rather go command a fleet and sail into a warzone than being stuck here trying to figure out what do the words and phrases on this wicked brown paper sheet means. He wants to leap out of the window and never come back again.

"Anna, I need to go to toilet…" Antonius raised up his hand and requested.

"No, you have went to toilet six times since you started on your assessment today." Frowned Anna as she pinned Antonius back onto the stool. "The main thing you need to have when studying, is concentration! Conscientiousness! Perception of knowledge! Or else the Latin words and phrases shall go into your head through your left eye and leave through your right eye!"

"Ah Anna…. It is sweet that you can pay this much effort to helping me, but please, I think I can manage…." Requested Antonius as he fidgeted around with his quid.

"Oh really? You can manage?" Anna sneered and quipped sarcastically at Antonius. "Two hours ago when I walked into the room coming back from lunch, you are here in your wet dreams sleeping sumptuously on my book! MY BOOK! The valuable sacred copies of orignal latin Commentarii de Bello Gallico… And you successfully spread it with your saliva like how you spread a bread! How dare you!"

Antonius gulped as he lowers his head trying to pay attention to the book once again, but soon he gave up and complained. "This book is not for starters right? Can we change to another book?"

"But you said that you want to become a legendary figure like Julius Caesar right? You said you want to admire his work right? I am just satisfying your wish!"

Antonius almost cried, and once again too up the quid with his trembling hand.