Late at night, the Emperor of the Byzantines stayed up writing the official orders for troop withdrawal from the Italian peninsula following the truce ending the war. His eyes were bleary from lack of sleep, his hands shaking as he wrote fateful words he'd never thought he'd be in a position to write....and indeed, if not for the heroic defense of Venizelos on the river Trigno during the early winter of 1745, there would be no Greek army, and the Papacy wouldn't need to
ask for surrender. Officially, the Greeks hadn't lost; strategically, they weren't in that horrible a position. But the realities on the ground belied that look: hardened Byzantine soldiers had refused to continue marching north; there was no point. Venizelos had only barely been able to hold the line of the Trigno. The hard core of the Byzantine army, what was left after the slaughter of the northern battles near Ancona, simply wouldn't keep going.
It was no surprise, really, Constantine XII told himself. His plans had been inadequate, his directives vague, his lower leadership not good enough, his decision to use irregulars from the war of Independence a poor one. As good an idea as it seemed, going to war over a single spy was probably not a great reason, not a good rallying cry. He'd simply screwed up, and would face the music now for it. His scrawled signature, still in the provincial Morean Greek style he always wrote in, would be posted in the headquarters of each corps in the next few weeks, the orders to stand down and leave Italia plainly written. The Italian War was over officially a few days ago; now it was over in reality. The ships of the Fleet, untouched by the disasters in central Italia, would be entering southern ports in the next few days.
A logothete was summoned to dispatch the order throughout occupied Italy. Constantine XII sat back in his chair, thinking to himself. Now that he'd pulled his nation out of war, back to the relative idyll of peace, maybe the Greeks could work on some sort of plan to revitalize their lowered education levels. Compared to other countries, some Greeks weren't that literate. The Byzantine empire should have a learned people, like a long time ago...the Emperor knew that future Emperors would look upon these times as simply growing pains. To those in the stark reality of a Europe at war, "growing pains" wouldn't even
begin to describe their misery and heartache. He left the chair and began to pace around the deserted throne room, still mulling everything over in his head.
He did not hear the ruckus that started outside his window as some Varangian guards shouted at a lone horseman to stop. He remained ignorant of the threats yelled at the still-riding man. He did not even look up when two shots sounded outside the room, both missing the implacable horseman. Lost in thought, the Emperor of Byzantium hummed to himself as he looked at a mosaic, nearly a millennium old, of past Emperors; warriors like Leo III the Isaurian, Nicephorus Phocas, and Basil Bulgaroctonus, builders and lawgivers like Leo the Wise, Renaissance Emperors like Justinian, Alexius I, John II, and Manuel I. He was still wandering through the mists of time when a deranged Greek former soldier burst through the door with a pistol in each hand, screaming unintelligibly at the top of his lungs. Behind him ran two Varangian guards and three doctors, one of whom carried a straitjacket.
Time slowed in those instants to a crawl, as it always does. The lone gunman seemed to come toward the emperor as though the very air had turned to mud or molasses. Slowly, the basileus tried to twist out of the way. He saw the madman's finger squeeze the triggers of his guns, sending bullets whipping toward him. He heard the sound of the shots, slamming into him like a wave. He watched as the bullets moved imperceptibly across the five meters between him and his assailant, his body too sluggish, too slow-
Impact.
He felt one bullet slam into his torso like a sledgehammer, knocking out all of his wind, the other passing a few inches away. He began to cough up blood as the bullet pierced his right lung. Still moving, the emperor tried to get to the side. The Varangians' shots began to hit the assassin, but the assailant continued inexorably forward. Four more shots rang out, more impacts, more pain, he began to double over. His legs collapsed as the last two shots in the enemy's guns slammed into his belly. More shots: the assassin's head was blown half away by the shots of the guards. The doctors were motionless at the doorway, except for their screaming in terror.
As he began to fade, crumpling onto the floor of the throne room, he had the slight pleasure of seeing that the remains of his assassin were turned into a bloody pulp by about fifteen shots from the guards, who ran over to him. His head was cradled by a guard as he began to feel at peace with the world, with himself, and with God.
Everything went black, then brightened into sharp brilliance.
It was fourteen minutes before midnight on the twelfth of January, 1746. As the timeless French saying and cliché goes:
The King is dead. Long live the King.
I kept calling them IOs in my orders for a reason.
dont trust him iggy!!
) and protected the shipments of men and material that marched off to die under stupid leadership and stupid plans. Melenides, because of this success (which really hadn't required much work on his part at all: the Papal navy hadn't even shown up), demanded a position as Regent much as a Grand Admiral would a few centuries and one universe away. His and Irene's were the strongest factions, but when the chips were down, no one really knew how this prospective Regent would act.
