At the exact moment the Bosporus Army was about to flood into Erzurum, Sheikh Hassan and his brother Hamza quickly gathered the valuables they had packed days earlier, intending to take advantage of the chaos to escape the city towards the southwest, escorted by their personal guards.
Before leaving, they even sent someone to Alexander's residence to inquire, planning to bring along their cousin, who was the source of the current dispute, to use as a bargaining chip for a final negotiation. But soon, they received an unbelievable message from the servant who returned to report.
"What, Alexander Komnenos ran away?" Sheikh was almost dumbfounded.
"Can he still be found?" Hamza quickly pressed.
"It's difficult, Your Highness. When we went to look for him, we found a thin layer of dust on the bedding in the room, and the person who usually stayed in the room and communicated with us was actually a body double wearing His Highness Alexander's clothes… "
"This guy never intended to stay in Erzurum!" Hearing this, Sheikh and the others finally realized. But now the city had fallen, and there was no time to search. At this point, they could only quickly have their servants take their valuables, mount their horses, and, escorted by a few personal guards, swiftly flee southwest towards Diyarbakir, a direction not yet fallen into enemy hands.
As for Alexander, just as these White Sheep Turkmens had realized, he had long ago sent his trusted aides to the northeast of Erzurum to make the necessary preparations. Now, he had finished disguising himself and, accompanied by several trusted attendants, rode at full speed, taking advantage of the chaos to leave the city.
"Erzurum has fallen," Alexander dismounted after ensuring his safety, leaning against a tree in a valley, and sighed, "It seems we can't rely on the Aq Qoyunlu Dynasty anymore. After all, without such a large part of West Armenia, and with the Black Sheep eyeing them, whether they can survive is still a question."
"Then, Your Highness, what should we do now?" a Latin servant who had followed him for a long time asked worriedly.
Alexander glanced north and said with a smile, "Go to Artashat. I remember it's very far from the Bosporus's controlled area, and not only is it adjacent to the White Sheep, but it's also in our hands."
"Is Your Highness planning to counterattack with Rizios and Artashat?" The servant felt a passionate fire ignite in his heart.
"How is that possible? We can't win a fight. I just hope these places can hold out a little longer, making it convenient for me to take a Genoese ship from a local port to seek aid from the Kandar Beylik and the various Beyliks of Janik." Alexander's face darkened as he poured cold water on him.
"…"
As all the important figures in the city fled and the Bosporus Army was about to enter, the Christians, no longer suppressed by muslim soldiers, quickly understood the situation. In a brief state of anarchy, these Christians, long considered second-class citizens, began to vent their anger, launching counter-persecutions against the remaining muslims in the city. For a time, thousands of Turkmens and Kurds wailed in Erzurum, and their lives were taken by Christians from inside and outside the city, their flesh even consumed by many long-starved slaves who had suffered greatly.
Such events naturally also occurred in a certain part of the eastern district—
Days earlier, when the Bosporus Army attacked, the local Turkmen lords were either in their tribal territories outside the city or had hidden in their 미리 purchased residences within the city.
The household to which Bagrat and Anagnostes belonged fell into the latter category. Incidentally, due to the series of policies enacted by the White Sheep defenders in the city some time ago, the slaves of this Turkmen household were now in a life-or-death situation due to starvation. Even the Greek elder Anagnostes, who usually served as an accountant, was no exception; if not for his literacy and his consistent role in clerical duties like accounting, he would likely have been discarded like most other slaves, unable to even get anything to eat.
Even so, three days ago, he could no longer get any food from this Turkmen household. Finally, half an hour before the city fell, the elderly Anagnostes could no longer hold on and collapsed in the wood shed he now occupied, which could barely be called a room.
"Teacher, Teacher…" Seeing Anagnostes pass out and finding him unresponsive, Bagrat, the Armenian youth slave who shared the wood shed with him, quickly helped him onto the straw, then, enduring the pain, bit his little finger and fed the blood that flowed out to the old man, who was practically his mentor. Bagrat was still able to move these days, largely thanks to Anagnostes sharing a good portion of the meager food he had received earlier.
About a quarter of an hour later, under Bagrat's care, Anagnostes barely regained consciousness.
"Saint Mary bless you, Teacher, it's truly wonderful that you're alright…" Just as Bagrat excitedly blurted out these words, the Greek old man motioned for him to be quiet.
After Bagrat quietly settled down, Anagnostes took out the book, "On the Last Fall of Thessaloniki," which he had hidden on his person, and handed it to the Armenian youth in front of him, "Bagrat, my… my immature manuscripts, I leave them to you. Whatever becomes of them, it's up to you… I hope the Holy Father's glory will, cough, long protect you…"
Facing the sudden words of this old man, who was both teacher and father, Bagrat was first stunned, then understood the meaning of his words, and immediately comforted him in a panic, "Teacher, Teacher, this… it's nothing, it's just… this… this is just a small test from the Holy Father for believers!"
Anagnostes shook his head weakly, smiling sadly, his cloudy chestnut eyes now appearing surprisingly clear for some reason, "I know my own body very well. I only pray for three things now: first, that you can survive; second, that my family, wherever they are, are safe and sound; and third, that Heaven is willing…"
"No, Teacher, you will definitely be safe next year!" Bagrat interrupted him excitedly. Through their time together, he had long regarded this slightly stooped and thin but exceptionally knowledgeable Greek old man as half a father. "You just rest here, I'll go find food for you! The Holy Father, the Holy Father will bless us!" With that, he rushed out of the wood shed, intending to find enough food for Anagnostes to fill his stomach.
Shortly after Bagrat left the wood shed, he bumped into the Kurdish steward, who was also the Kurdish overseer during the usual pasture supervision.
At this moment, Bagrat didn't care about much else and immediately knelt on the ground, begging the Kurd in front of him for some flatbread or other food. But in response to his plea, the other party, who was not timely enough in his understanding of Erzurum, only responded with a scolding and punches and kicks, warning him to mind his status as a slave. Finally, the Kurd grinned and sneered, "It's for that Greek old man, isn't it? You thought I knew nothing about your affairs, didn't you? Do you infidels like to suck on each other? No wonder you willingly went to that rotten wood shed when we entered the city!"
Upon hearing this, Bagrat, who had been kneeling on the ground, couldn't help but jump up, "You're not allowed to insult…"
Before he could finish speaking, the malnourished Bagrat was knocked down by a punch from the other party, "We don't usually manage you much, and now you're getting arrogant? Slaves should act like slaves!"
After a series of stomps, the Kurdish steward called a few muslim servants to carry Bagrat and throw him out of the house. They had been treating such dying slaves this way for the past few days, and this time, if nothing unexpected happened, it would just be business as usual.
But they did not expect the unexpected to come so quickly.
A quarter of an hour later, just as Bagrat had formed a cross with his left middle finger and food, and was praying the names of angels from the scriptures, a group of Armenians, carrying forks and torches, dressed in simple clothes and with thin figures, suddenly appeared before him.
"What… what's going on?" Bagrat thought it was a hallucination.
"Excuse me, are you a Christian?" Seeing the cross Bagrat made, the one among the Armenians who seemed to be the leader asked him.
"Yes…" Bagrat closed his already lifeless brown eyes, waiting for whatever was to happen next.
But what he expected did not happen to him. Instead, these Armenians helped him up, affectionately called him a fellow brother, and told him, "The city has fallen, brother. Now this is a Christian city."
"The city has fallen, oh, it has fallen, ah…" After hearing this news, Bagrat's expression was first dazed and confused, then his mouth twitched as he muttered, "Hahaha, the city has fallen." Finally, he burst into a frantic, joyful cry, laughing wildly without regard for his collapsing body or his diminishing strength.
What happened next was simple: Bagrat personally led this team of Armenians, composed of slaves and former slaves, back into his Turkmen master's residence, and along the way, pulled in other emaciated Armenian slaves he encountered. Then he again ran into the Kurdish steward and his companions, as well as the Turkmen master's family, whom he had rarely seen.
This time, the Kurdish steward and the Turkmen family beside him no longer displayed their previous arrogance and disdain. Having just learned that the city had fallen, they now knew the situation had completely reversed, and their only thought was to escape.
"Please…" The Kurdish steward's plea for mercy only managed to utter a single word before he was swarmed by the Armenians, who were filled with the fire of revenge, and in a short while, he was torn into bloody, unrecognizable pieces.
"Whatever… spare my…" The head of the Turkmen household, seeing this, stepped forward, blocking his family with his sturdy body, and gritted his teeth, begging them to spare his wife and children.
But this act only drew their anger. "When your parents were hanged by you, why didn't you spare their lives?" an elderly Armenian yelled at him.
"Excuse me, your parents are… who?" The Turkmen man asked in great confusion.
His reaction completely enraged these Armenians. They immediately swarmed him, mercilessly hacking, stabbing, and striking at the Turkmen family with their weapons or fists.
This atmosphere, both frantic and cruel, also affected Bagrat. Watching the tormented muslims before him, he seemed to have a hallucination of his own family being brutally murdered. He was still young then, and by hiding under the bed and then escaping the house, which was called "home," amidst the chaos, he managed to survive the Turk scimitars outside the city, where he was sold as a slave, thus escaping with his life.
Was it also in Erzurum then? It was over ten years ago, he could no longer remember clearly. Only the dismembered bodies and blood of his family remained vivid in his memory.
As the memories deepened, it was as if a wound somewhere in Bagrat was torn open, and he could only transfer this pain to the group of muslims in front of him. Coming back to his senses, he realized his stomach felt a little full.
"?"
Feeling puzzled, he wiped the corner of his mouth with his hand, only to find it unknowingly covered in a lot of blood that wasn't his own. Looking closely, he realized he wasn't the only one with blood all over his mouth.
Well, they had been starving for days, hadn't they? After comforting himself in this way, Bagrat felt a little better.
"Oh, Teacher!" Thinking that his mentor's fate was still uncertain, Bagrat grew worried. He quickly tore a strip of cloth from his clothes, wrapped a few pieces of fresh red something in it, and rushed to the wood shed, not caring about anything else.
Indeed, just as he had thought, Anagnostes was lying dazed and unconscious inside the shed. After Bagrat gathered some firewood and arranged it as if for a barbecue, he very gently woke his mentor.
"What is this? Is it meat?" Anagnostes, now awake, looked at the fresh red items wrapped in the cloth beside Bagrat and asked him with a hint of greed and confusion.
Bagrat nodded evasively, then mechanically placed the meat on the firewood, "Teacher, I'm going to roast it now. You know I'm very good at roasting meat. And eating raw meat will make you sick, won't it?"
But Anagnostes, seeing his evasive eyes and recalling his disjointed words earlier, asked hesitantly, "What kind of meat?"
Bagrat replied numbly with a smile, "It's nothing, Teacher, it's just,"
"Deer meat."