"Oh well, I'll go persuade this man myself." After the Venetians, who had known Dungar from Trabzon, provided information about him, Manuel, driven by curiosity, finally made this decision.
In the evening, Dungar de Laporte, still under house arrest, sat idly in his room.
"Why did things turn out this way?" He sadly recalled his experiences before coming here, unsure of what would become of him. Although he, like other captured Trabzon high-ranking officials, was not mistreated in his room, apart from interrogations—or rather, semi-forced questioning—Dungar had not had any interaction with others during these days. This made him worry about his future, yet he didn't want to casually switch loyalties like other detainees. It wasn't that he was so loyal to John IV, but rather that he didn't want to so casually give his allegiance again. Perhaps this was the affectation of a serious Western European knight.
As he pondered in boredom, the door opened without him noticing. The young and unfamiliar face that entered the room nearly startled him.
"You are…" He immediately jumped up, startled, and began to speak with surprise and hesitation.
"Please put away your disrespect, Anglo. Standing before you now is…" An armed guard beside the young noble, who was wearing a greyish-blue dalmatica with intricate patterns, interrupted his question, intending to introduce the monarch he served.
"Stop, stop, Badars, you can skip the superfluous titles for now. Lord Dungar, allow me to introduce myself, I am Caesar Manuel, the current ruler of the Bosphorus Despotate." The young noble, Manuel, awkwardly interrupted Badars' introduction. The thought of hearing his subordinate recite his long string of complex titles again made him feel especially eerie.
Is it him? After a brief moment of surprise, Dungar, being of English noble birth, skillfully performed an appropriate knight's salute to the Greek monarch before him, "My apologies, Manuel."
Manuel accepted his salute in the manner of a Western European monarch, then had the door closed and motioned for Badars to step aside, indicating that he wished to speak with Dungar alone.
This made the standing Dungar nervous, but after their respective prayers, Manuel's first words made him relax involuntarily, "By the Holy Mother, you must be uncomfortable after arriving in Asia Minor."
"Yes, originally…" Realizing he had almost said something inappropriate, Dungar immediately tensed his somewhat relaxed nerves and quickly explained, "No, no, Your Majesty, I'm fine, I'm fine."
"Lord Dungar, you can relax more," Manuel replied with a smile. This time, he deliberately slowed his tone, hoping to put the other party at ease.
As the other party hesitated, Manuel seized on his inexperience and said, "Hmm, I heard a little about you from the Venetians."
"How much do you know?!" Dungar was stunned.
"No, I was just thinking, perhaps we both have similar pasts," Manuel tried to press further, hoping to move him.
Dungar's incredulous yet somewhat wavering expression made Manuel keenly sense an opportunity. "Being betrayed by family must be a very painful thing."
"Strictly speaking, they aren't my family…" Before he could finish, Dungar tightly shut his mouth.
Yes, the reason he had inexplicably come to Asia Minor and been exploited by Venetian usurers was fundamentally due to persecution from his family back home. As the posthumous son of the Earl of Suffolk, he was ostracized because of his mother's Irish background. Even the title he might have inherited was stripped away by the Duke of Suffolk, forcing him to join the war against France. Afterward, Dungar witnessed the death of Saint Joan of Arc, and his faith shaken, he left the battlefield, seeking peace in the East.
Then he was exploited by the Venetians.
Recalling this, Dungar felt his eyes glaze over a little, and Manuel opportunely revealed a bit of his own past, "Lord Dungar should know about the civil war that broke out on the Tauris Peninsula at the beginning of this year. The one who took up arms against me during that time was my own brother."
This directly touched Dungar, who was inexperienced in the ways of the world, leading him to view this amiable Greek monarch before him as a kindred spirit. Afterward, under Manuel's guidance and the promise to help him repay his debts, Dungar, with little emotional guard, quickly sided with Manuel and began to speak freely.
As night fell, Manuel, feeling he had learned enough, subtly brought the conversation to an end. Dungar then hesitantly asked, "Your Majesty, there's one last thing I'd like to ask."
"Ask away."
"What exactly are you fighting for, from Eastern Europe all the way to Asia Minor?"
"Why do you ask that question?" Manuel asked with a gentle smile.
"Because, Manuel, although you claim to be reclaiming your inheritance, strategically speaking, seizing land in Asia Minor doesn't seem to offer much benefit to you and the Bosphorus Despotate you rule, other than adding wealth and territory? If you were a devout fanatic, you should seek opportunities to conquer the Tatar steppes, home to the more blasphemous Tatars; if you were a wise and discerning man, you should, while maintaining good relations with neighboring great powers, spread civilizing education to the Circassian tribes in the east; if you were an ambitious monarch, you should use flexible means to seize land from the Rus' and the Tatars.
"I apologize, I once mistakenly thought you were a vainglorious tyrant. But from your conversation just now, you can be said to be a young and capable wise ruler, and you don't possess the arrogance and conceit I associate with Greeks." Dungar tried his best to imitate the tone of Greeks he remembered, striving to use elegant language in his lengthy speech, which made Manuel inwardly chuckle.
"So, what do you think it's for?" Manuel waved his hand, interrupting him, and asked in return.
"I apologize, Your Majesty, I don't know. But I believe Your Majesty must be striving for some lofty ideal that others find difficult to comprehend."
"Hmm, let's just say that's the case," Manuel finally responded vaguely. At the same time, he sighed inwardly with a complex feeling, "Lofty ideal? Ha, the restoration of Rome, or rather, the Rome in my heart, is that a lofty ideal? If my subordinates knew, their expressions would probably be very interesting."
After confirming Dungar's departure, Manuel, who remained in the room, dismissed everyone and immediately changed his demeanor. In a very peculiar posture, he covered his left eye with his right hand and burst into a maniacal, almost demonic laughter, "Hehehe, hahahaha! Inexperienced little brats are so easy to fool. Just put on a look of understanding, feign empathy, show a tiny bit of insignificant genuine emotion, and you can easily peel back their scars, making them willingly serve me."
But for some reason, he inexplicably felt his right hand was a little wet. He lowered it to look, and it turned out the true source of this dampness was his eyes.
Manuel first froze, then gave a bitter smile of sudden realization, "Oh no, while uncovering someone else's scars, I accidentally uncovered my own. I need to be more careful next time."
The next day, Dungar de Laporte was released and transferred to Manuel's command, while the unfortunate Turkmen, Ridwan, was beheaded and his body hastily buried on the spot.
Upon receiving confirmation of Ridwan's death, Manuel immediately began writing letters to Barbara, who was regent in Mangup, and his father, "May the Lord protect you… The situation is urgent, so trivial matters will be omitted for now… In short, quickly distribute nearly four hundred stremma of newly cultivated land on the North Tauris border to at least 500 farmers, so they can become farmer-soldiers and join the Grand Company as soon as possible… Because my upcoming campaign in Asia Minor may not be so smooth…"