And what will it do?
- The smoke. A lot of smoke. If you maintain a certain rate of shelling with such shells, then you can envelop the whole monastery with thick smoke and keep it at a level for a couple of days. This will greatly weaken the guys who have settled there. I almost forgot - in these balls still need to add a little wool for a puffing flavor.
- And how will you throw them there?
- Let's make a few small trebuches. Incidentally, Ignatius, "he said to the abbot leading over the militia of the monks," take me one hundred and twenty people, more fat. " You see that rock with a small plateau. They will be accommodated there, today bows will be delivered from ships, so that they can immediately begin shelling the monastery.
"But they do not know how to shoot! "
" They will not go to the monastery? "They will be divided into three shifts for forty people. Each shift will shoot at the monastery on schedule - a third shoots, two-thirds rest. This will allow them to shoot around the clock. How much time do you need to recruit people?
"I think I manage for two hours. "
Excellent! As you gather people, push them to the port, they will be armed and loaded with ammunition. And we can only wait and continue to conduct preparatory siege events.
At midnight on the same day, monks with bows began a systematic and unhurried bombardment of the monastery. The distant cordon and external patrols were made by their brethren assigned to the hegumen Ignatius, and the immediate military shields were organized by the forces of the prince in the immediate vicinity of the monastery. And not just barriers, but fortified ones, with a palisade and observation towers, which were made of wood. On the morning of the third day, a couple of miniature trebuches were built, however, they could not prepare the smoke ammunition for them yet. Only in the evening of the fourth day they began firing smoke bombs. By morning the whole monastery was hidden in thick smoke. On the sixth day of this very simple and tedious methodological activity, disinfecting the territory, stopped casting smoke bombs. On the early morning of the seventh day, an assault was scheduled. All the troops of the prince were defeated in assault columns and knew not only all their tasks and the route, but also the plan of the monastery. And now, with the first rays of the sun on the gate earned ballista. On the fourth shot one of the doors lost contact with the hinges and collapsed into the yard. Immediately after that, the artillery moved the point of fire to a well-located tower outside the gate, where, most likely, there was a well-targeted fortress crossbow. And then not one. After the second volley through the tower, the soldiers moved into the gate, forming a dense column and shields. Neither on the walls, nor in the courtyard, no one resisted them, so they decided to proceed further according to plan. They acted quite simply. A group of warriors in brigantines took a hand ram and started to beat the gate. The remaining soldiers stood to the right and left of the gate. After knocking out this improvised obstacle, the battering ram group retreated back, giving way to the shield guardians, who covered themselves with large shields - the pavis first entered the interior of the room. They were followed by arrows with crossbows. In the inner chambers, resistance was nevertheless met, but very sluggish. These monks were absolutely awful - greenish faces, big black circles under the eyes, eyes yellow. Until the hand-to hand they did not finish, they had accurate and accurate shots from crossbows. At such a distance, they were not rescued by chain mail, helmets, or shields. The bolt that hit the face came out from the back of the helmet. The progress was slow enough, as literally every door was not only locked, but also backed from the back with a log. Often I had to resort to a large ram. However, by lunchtime the whole of the ground part of the monastery was taken, and the remaining defenders took shelter in the basements. There was organized the last line of defense with several heavy cross-country crossbows, which almost at point-blank punched for the flight of the armor that stood at the end of a small corridor. Having lost one sergeant, Eric decided to go the other way. From the trebuchet they brought clay camp vessels with alcohol. Having knocked down one of them and found that there remained a gram of two hundred, he stuffed a few dilapidated rags into it and, after waiting for the matter to soak up alcohol, set fire to it, and flung a hand from around the corner toward the crossbows that had settled. Judging by the cries, he achieved the desired effect. Therefore, he ordered three more sergeants to roll into the corridor with a roll and shoot from the floor in the calculation of the fortress crossbows. But it was unnecessary. Those who were dressed in their cassocks flamed like torches and did not pay attention to the enemy. They did not even spend bolts on them - breaking through their swords. Discharging dangerous toys, the troops began to move forward. Before them was, judging by the plan of the monastery, the last room, which has not yet been taken. Big hall. How many people there are unknown, like the presence of heavy crossbows. The door turned out to be very strong, we had to carry a large battering ram, however, it still succumbed. Behind her was a man of fifteen with spears, standing so that any incoming came under attack from several fighters. Among them were two men in expensive armor. After giving the necessary instructions, Eric watched as one after another fell monks, struck in the face of powerful crossbow from a short distance, in the end there were only these two. The prince himself came out to them and, catching their hands a synchronous blow to the chest, pressed their spears under their armpits. His people did not lose their heads and very quickly fell in and twisted these comrades. As expected - it was the rector Savvas and his assistant Meletios. They were awaited by the very terrible and fascinating fate of a long torture interrogation.
The rest of the day together with the monks were busy fixing the order in the monastery - they relieved of the armor and carried corpses to the hall of the main church for burial, collected weapons, ammunition, dismantled serf arbalests and so on. Actually, the last ones were left as a gift to John, so that he could strengthen the Great Lavra with them, since they had absolutely nothing to Eric. According to general estimates, it turned out that the monastery was protected by two hundred and thirty-two people, more than half of whom were not monks. Simple fighters had quilted gambesones and aketons, non-commissioned officers supplemented the last with chain mail, and several officers wore scaled armor from Bulgarian workshops. By the way, only twenty people were killed by arrows, however, on the armor a large number of hits were counted. Apparently the rock was not high enough and the effect of the Crimean Sugdei could not be repeated. Losses from the prince turned out to be rather modest - five miles and two promiles were slightly wounded and one sergeant was killed. Savvas and Meletia were tortured in separate rooms of the basement, spaced at the maximum distance. Of course, the patriarch personally attended the interrogations of both and learned a lot of new things. In general, the assumption that all this papal intrigues was fully confirmed. As for these two activists, a very unenviable fate awaited them. They hoped that sincere repentance would alleviate their fate, and therefore they laid out everything they knew practically without torture. True, this did not save them, but even on the contrary - it aggravated the punishment. Since they not only once already betrayed their own, but also surrendered without much resistance to their new suzerain. Therefore, realizing that they do not know anything else, they cut the skin alive alive, after binding and having abundantly salted with large salt, wrapped the sheet. Further placed on one common boat under sail and sent to the wind away from the shore. The loch, which served them as the last swimming device in life, had a small leak, and the comrades were located on a small hill, so that up to the day of torment they had. Afterwards they went to the bottom with the boat. Cruel, but an excellent edification for future traitors, as all the monks of the Holy Mountain learned about their fate. All the armor and weapons, of course, the prince took as a trophy, while the patriarch pleased him with beautiful manuscripts, a number of which dated back to the times of the ancient Latin empire. A special charm was Aristotle's "Rhetoric" in two parts, that is, the lost, mystical second part, about which so many legends were composed in his world, was now in his hands. Although, of course, the numerous manuscripts of Roman engineers, designers, seamen, artisans, and scientists were of particular value, a whole heap of ancient but extremely useful texts. There were also texts in ancient Greek, which turned out to be lists of ancient Egyptian, Sumerian and Babylonian works on astronomy, which in itself is a very large and surprising rarity. This is not just the titanic volume of the text in the form of more than twenty thousand scrolls on the works of Greek scholars themselves, such as Archimedes, Pythagoras, Aristarchus of Samos, Democritus, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Eratosthenes, Apollonius of Pergus, Hipparchus, Hippocrates , Ptolemy and others. It was a truly amazing wealth that would allow, with proper approach, to organize a phenomenal leap forward even without the knowledge of the prince himself, received in the distant future. Such a rich catch of useful books to him, even Athens and Constantinople did not bring. In general, slowly loading and gathering, Eric was able to sail to the side of Constantinople only on the first of July. On the way his squadron noticed a strange ship, which, having noticed it, turned in the opposite direction and decided to flee. Once runs, then guilty. Therefore, our hero drove him into one of the bays of the coast and took to boarding. After the search, he was waiting for a surprise - in the hold, disguised as a simple sailor, the former Emperor Alexei III was hiding, who was sailing yes it's actually not important where he sailed, since his journey was over. Eric dragged him into his cabin, closed the door, took out of the drawer a sheet of blank paper, an inkwell, a bundle of feathers and other writing materials.
