"I beg your pardon, Your Majesty was supposed to receive you as soon as possible, but that secret envoy arrived temporarily and brought a message of vital importance to the Empire, coming from the East, so Your Majesty can only entertain him for the time being." The empathetic bird, Nikdemia, stood beside the two of them and explained with all his heart.

A mountain pass about two thousand miles away in the River Hall is the location of the royal hunting garden, and at this moment spring is the season when everything is growing, so it is reasonable to say that it is not suitable for hunting, and it is more necessary to hunt, that is, to hunt those wild beasts that have not yet become pregnant.

Under a few large trees, a young warrior dressed as a guard, lying quietly in the windswept grass, with his eyes closed and a crescent-style flask tied to his hand, was motionless, and several elk jumped past him, and the man did not react.

On the hillside on the other side, a middle-aged man in a hunting robe with a purple crown in his annoyed grip with a bent whip was on it, looking down on all this, and several of the rest of the guards knelt before his horse, and a nobleman in a Persian riding robe, with an imposing eagle resting on his shoulder, smiling and shaking his head, also on horseback, standing behind him.

A few slender hounds, with their heads down and whining, circled around the middle-aged man, but they didn't run at all, and when they saw hares and elks, they didn't react at all, "Bastard, bastard, run!" The rest of the canines yelled, but the hounds were unmoved.

"Hang that peasant, drunkard, and scoundrel from Paphragonia, and I will tell you to go now, and hang him in front of the tree that I can see!" The middle-aged man was furious, his hound had completely disobeyed orders, and had turned a deaf ear to his commands to track down his prey, because of the young guard lying in the grass below the mountain.

But the rest of the guards all smiled awkwardly, but none of them stepped forward to execute, even if the middle-aged man was the only emperor in this world, but even Alexios, that is, there was no way to take the guard, and finally Alexios, who was wearing a purple crown, still found a guard and softened, "Go, get there, ask Mikhail who is lying there. Vattarsky, ask him what exactly he wants? ”

Soon the questioning guards returned and told the emperor, "Mikhail needs wine, a fine wine from the cellar of the Brachna Palace." ”

Alexios couldn't help but laugh, "Send him a pot." ”

Mikhail, who was lying in the grass, immediately stood up after drinking the wine given by the emperor, and drank a few times in the native dialect of Paphragonia, and the hounds immediately chased after me and whined, and rushed to all the places of the hunting garden, and out of the boiling dust, countless dormant beasts rushed out.

"The world can't live without the lowly people of musicians, dancers, guards, and hunters, and without them, even the emirs, the sultans, and even the Roman emperors, all the fun, right?" The nobleman, dressed in a Persian riding robe, stepped forward with a smile and stood with Alexios, speaking in fluent and elegant Greek.

"Mikhail is a bastard young man, but I never doubted his loyalty to me and his uncle's loyalty, and his demands were only for alcohol, and this young man had a natural disease of epilepsy, which is why I loved him." Alexios looked at Mikhail, who stepped on his horse and drove the hounds to hunt, and said.

"You're worried about the other people in the Xiao Wall, aren't you? If I'm not mistaken, it's your co-emperor Caesar? ”

"I have more than one enemy. There are three of my most hated enemies: one is the Norman bandits of Taranto and Sicily, who were in Durazo ten years ago, and I almost lost my life before their iron horsemen; The second was Archduke Constantine of Za'tar. Berdin, in the Battle of Durazo, it was his treachery and escape from the front with the left flank that led to our victory and defeat; The third is the Emir Zahaas of Nicaea, who has sent fleets from Sinop every year for the past three years to besiege the imperial capital, which has caused prices to soar and people are panicked - as for Caesar Macaulinus, he is my enemy, but his old enemy is not qualified, and you are the same, the Sultan of Roma, Gilikhi. Arslan, like the Pechenegs and Cumans of the northern steppes, as well as the Franks and Germans, you can be considered friends and enemies in my eyes, but for you, it is better not to be an enemy of me. With that, Alexios raised a bow, and then put on an arrow made of a reed pipe without a tuft, and gently filled it, with a soft roar, and the arrow glided hundreds of feet like a divine help, before falling.

"It's our Turkic light arrow, Your Majesty really has the pleasure of having fun." Gilligi. Arslan also took off the bow and arrow he was carrying, and shot a light arrow for gliding, which was not judged by the hit, but was determined by distance and proximity, "It seems that the difference between it and His Majesty's is a hundred feet!" ”

"The problem of wind direction, you must master the wind well in order to shoot arrows well." Alexios said meaningfully, "As long as you join forces with me, like your father Suleiman, and provide me with 7,000 to 10,000 Turkic mercenaries, plus the Turks I have hired in the northern Cuman, it will be enough to fight the Pechenegs in the north." ”

"What about Zahas of Nicaea?"

"I'm going to have a fleet blockading the Sea of Marimara, and I've summoned George. Paralogus returned to Asia to succeed the incompetent Myaulinus, or rather, I would give George de facto military command and Caesar the false title of Supreme Commander. George has been fighting in Dirasime and Barry for many years, he is much stronger than the waste of McAulinus, and he also has a company of Italian veterans in the Viceroyalty of Bari, I believe that with my financial support and your cooperation, George will be able to defeat Zahas, so that I will not be at risk of being attacked on my back, and I can safely slaughter the Pechenegs who cross the Danube. Alexios was confident, and then he looked at Gilici, "Don't think that the emperor of Rome has temporarily lost Nicaea and Anatolia and will be killed, my throne is in Constantinople, this great city that can collect 20,000 solid taxes a day, is my empire, not to occupy the state to occupy Constantinople, but to occupy Constantinople to have the state - you remember this, don't be like the stupid Zahas, who has the slightest thought about its walls, Now the blade of the Roman emperor's counterattack has shone brightly, and the horn has grown. ”

"I didn't think so, I just need the merchants of my capital city of Konya, to set up a chamber of commerce warehouse in your imperial capital, as well as a mosque, and the privilege of commerce."

"Yes, absolutely." The emperor readily agreed, pinching the bowstring in his hand.

"In addition, I hope that you will marry your eldest princess, Anna, to the court of Konya, of course, my wife." Gilligi made an additional request.

With a sonorous sound, the emperor directly ripped off the bowstring!