Diognis, who was about to attack, looked at the calmness of Tetisius's eyes under the terrifying face, and could only force the anger burning in his heart to be suppressed.

Originally, he wanted to say that he questioned the relationship between Tetisius and Caesar, because he was a slave under Caesar, so he commanded the battle with selfish motives - not only to show mercy to Gawain's men, but also to risk turning against him.

But if this is done, the entire army of 5,000 detachments, which was originally under the command of Brenus, will have to be divided into internal strife, which will harm the situation of the entire empire, so the guard officer has no choice but to suppress his complaints and doubts in his heart. He was now thinking that if Gawain had been, he might have expressed his thoughts out loud, but he wasn't Gawain after all, he was just the Imperial Keeper Theognes, some inconspicuous figure in a vast and ancient system, and in this respect he was no higher than Tetisius, who was born a Turkic slave.

The snowflakes slapped coldly on Diognis's face, and the wind rose again, and the clouds were thick and gloomy, and it looked like it would be a difficult night with a howling north wind in the evening, and the gray and white snowfields were covered with corpses scattered everywhere, and Gawain's infantry company, after meeting up with the pilgrim army of Gottschalk, did not come to attack their own camp, for they were also exhausted, and quickly retreated.

Soon after, Gawain and Baldwin joined Godfrey's forces and withdrew westward.

And Alexios also gave the order to stop the attacks from all sides.

Although the Emperor's army and the pilgrim ranks suffered heavy casualties in a fierce battle throughout the day, the whole situation was over. It was undoubtedly Emperor Komnenos who gained the advantage: the Brenus detachment, which was routed in the area of the Imperial Tomb, suffered hundreds of casualties. Not only did they defend St. Atkins' Gate and Juquintina Palace, but they also captured the very important stone bridge. Broke Godfrey's attempt to join forces with the Normans.

The elite soldiers and horses of the three pilgrims, who had set out in the morning, returned to rest in the camp guarded by Gotschalk.

Godfrey sat down in the seat in the center of the day, his fingers constantly touching the hilt of the sword, and then he calmed his throat and said to Gottschalke with a very sentimental attitude, "The bodies of the fallen soldiers, have they all been gathered?" "After receiving an affirmative answer. Godfrey bowed his head, "The bodies will be cremated, but take out their hearts and apply them with antiseptic from Cairo, and I will not let these faithful and brave believers be buried in the kingdom of the Greeks, and I will take them with me until the city of Jerusalem, and then bury them around the Holy Sepulchre, which is the fate of all the warriors." ”

After speaking. Godfrey looked at his brother at the door of the tent, who was talking to several battalion officers about the casualties of the horses, and finally came up with an approximate figure that made Baldwin feel very painful: he had brought hundreds of horses with his team. Almost all of them were killed or wounded or scattered.

War horses, for the Frankish knights, were as precious as their comrades. This kind of casualties is almost equivalent to the casualties of people. Baldwin couldn't help but slam his fist into the lower post. First he angrily denounced the baseness of the Greek emperor's bow and arrow, and then he scolded the Normans for not having any sense of alliance in them at all—and today the palace of Juquintina is so miserable. Tanfred was on the waterfront over there, and he was watching from the wall.

"Don't go any further, Baldwin, remember the virtues of the nobility, today we did lose to the Greek emperor, the other party's tactics and command ability make us sigh at ourselves, this is a fact, there is no need to complain at all." Godfrey sternly corrected his brother's reckless and aggressive words.

Baldwin put his hand on the pillar, his head pressed between his arms, and remained silent, as did his wife, Goldschild, and the atmosphere of the camp was very heavy, until Goldchild turned his gaze to Gawain, who was frowning, and motioned for the priesthood to give a speech to inspire everyone.

Gawain said aloud, "We have also inflicted a heavy blow on Emperor Komnenos in this battle, and I still have the second and third honorors of the Roman Empire in my hands, and I can negotiate peace with Constantinople." ”

This sentence stunned all the people present, they only knew that Gawain had captured a Greek archduke general in the ambush before, and now he didn't expect that the two people the emperor was most personally appointed by him were in his hands, and then the priesthood paused, "When I advocated peace talks before, Duke Godfrey was eager to fight. Now that we have started a war with the Emperor, we should not change our minds temporarily, and if we simply use the Imperial Brother and Brenus as bargaining chips, Emperor Komnenos will despise us, thinking that the pilgrims will use hostages to beg for peace because they have surrendered and lost. ”

"That's right!" Godfrey was a little excited.

"We need a victory, both military and diplomatic, to show the strength of the pilgrims, in exchange for what we want—the right to buy supplies, the right to exploit the straits, and the emperor to provide ships free of charge, and to send troops in good faith to assist. The situation is too precarious now, the hermit Peter is imprisoned by the emperor, and the chief of the Normans, Bohemond, must have entered the city on the same day as me, and judging from the current reaction, most of this person has accepted the emperor's bribe. And the entire seventy or eighty thousand pilgrims organized by the hermit monks in advance have been sent by the emperor to the other side of the strait, and may have faced the saber slaughter of the Turkic Sultan Sur Leman. Gawain said bitterly.

Hearing this, Baldwin's eyes were bloodshot, he raised his face, clenched his fist and slammed it against the pillar, and cursed again the vanity and unscrupulous Normans until his wife, Goldhead, tugged at the sleeve of his coat and motioned for him to be silenced.

Encouraged by Gawain's words, and with Godfrey's approval, the pilgrims reaffirmed their understanding that they could not easily fall under the boots of the cunning Alexios, and that all pilgrims should talk to the emperor about peace with the emperor in a relatively independent manner.

At this time, Billel hurried in, and after saluting you, "Perhaps you should come out and see what the Greeks on the other side are doing." ”

Surprised and frightened, the Frankish lords, led by the three leaders, walked out of the tent of the council.

In the darkness of the night, the embankment in front of St. Atkins' Gate, to the area of the Imperial Tomb, was full of countless pine bonfires, printed with flying white snowflakes, and the Emperor's troops recruited from various nationalities lined up neatly along the low-lying ground to the Imperial Tomb of St. Basil, like a fiery red dam: the military horses in the Emperor's city seemed to be in rendezvous with Tetisius.

But this formation was by no means a simple demonstration, behind the emperor's infantry and cavalry, countless soldiers and civilians were waving various tools and intensively building a camp under protection.

"Field fortifications of the Greeks," Godfrey mused.

"It seems that Alexios is trying to isolate us from Sarabria's side." Gawain patted the snowflakes on his head. (To be continued.) )