Chapter 59
That Laurentios thinks he is so smart.
General Laurentios Kantakouzenos is starting to get on my nerves. I know he is a brilliant strategist, but he is constantly criticizing my battle plans. Once he laughed at my battle formations in front of my column. I have been marshal for Armenia, a powerful duchy of the Byzantine Empire. He has been steward for Sennar. He should show more respect. I know that he received the best military education available, but so what? My own military education largely consisted in my watching Gelada Baboons fight among themselves for food. You can learn a lot of things from watching them, and not just about fighting.
We will overshoot Dwin to save time as we will just miss Ani in Dwin. That was... Laurentios' idea.
My army has arrived in time to help. Our enemy was sieging my son’s capital, but is now fleeing before me and will escape one day ahead of me. I will follow on his heels, and will soon catch him. We will see what these Sennarian light infantry can do against trained Byzantine troops. It is good I have a nine to one advantage.
Hey Laurentios, I’ve already finished with my flank. What’s taking you so long?
The Battle of Shaki will be over quickly. The Count of Ani is leading his own men, and I have never seen a worse commander on the field. My original incompetent Sennarian officers would have outperformed this count.
The battle is quickly won. I am overjoyed, but General Laurentios has to ruin the moment with negative talk about what “the reports” tell us. He claims that when he reviews the reports, he realizes that our army performed very poorly indeed. Despite the central column being commandeered by an officer with ten times the skill of his opponent (does he ever stop bragging?), despite our army’s flanks being structured much better, and despite a nine to one advantage, our kill to death rate was one to one with the enemy. It is true that these Sennarian troops are little more than rabble and we would probably do better to enlist the surly Sennarian peasants. But who needs these depressing reports? We won, that’s the important point. Now once I we chase down and destroy the demoralized remnants of Ani’s army, we will join my son’s siege in Ani, which is progressing much too slow with just his troops.
The Count of Ani surrenders once his capital falls. Meanwhile, Empress Ioanna has been busy crushing all the rebels against her rule. Now that the danger to my own dynasty has been crushed, I am tempted to return to the comforts of home—the arms of my wife, a good glass of tej, and the latest attempt by my cook to produce something edible—but I will help the Empress destroy the rebels instead. Who knows, perhaps she will notice my efforts.
Those troublesome peasants indeed.
Sure enough, the surly Sennar peasants again start agitating. Can the dwarf not even collect the taxes competently? Now I will have to order the marshal to suppress the peasants instead of more usefully training army recruits.
