9. The Purchasing

  By the 19th of January, Adaneus did not baulk, selling 500 solidi worth of black pepper to local merchants, realising that he had to create a navy of sorts to get anywhere.

  “Ideally, we need a merchant fleet. We have 7000 solidi, not a bad amount but it could be better,” Adaneus said, “we need to ideally begin selling to the French market, and the northern Italian market, and of course the siege of our city ending would also be great.”

  “The Normans have declared a holy war against the Pagans of Bari,” a man said, “that is what the merchants were saying.”

  “That’s not good,” Kwame admitted.

  “No it is not good,” Adaneus whispered, “anything else?”

  “We need to take the surrounding cities,” Kwame said, “but that requires an army, so army or navy first?”

  “There is no money in an army, let these idiots swarm around the city of Bari, the catapults and ballistae will shoot them down. Keep the supplies stocked and begin the process. But we need to stock up gold, for conquests are going to be expensive.”

  “The Normans, the Holy Roman Empire, the Almoravids, the Fatimids, the Seljuks, there are a lot of enemies Adaneus,” Butros said, “we must plan accordingly.”

  Selling dried cloves once again, in roughly 1300 litrai of weight. The city coffers now having 10,200 solidi. Purchasing crossbows for the garrison, and having the siege equipment lined up on the walls, Adaneus made a simple observation.

  “We need to expand the perimeter of the walls, for the size of the city to expand, for my agricultural area to be unhindered. For the future of our city.”

  Approximately 500 people were drawn into the city by the news of the riches it was attracting. These new immigrants were brought along with stone, building the foundations of new wall, while the Normans watched from a few hundred metres.

  “Those men inside that city are heathens!” Guiscard shouted, “cease your work.”

  When some cavalry tried to harass the builders, crossbows began clicking, and ballistae began shooting down at the horses, who were immediately stopped in their tracks. Placing stones so boldly out in front of the Normans pissed them off, but they saw a window of opportunity in the open gates some of them openly trying to rush and storm the gate only to have catapults and ballistae blast a barrage that mowed down a bunch of the rushing knights. 20 of them impaled on pikes. The mess was cleared and the soldiers hurriedly shut the gates while the Normans were left slaughtered on the field; they didn’t know it, but there was no rush, for there was no further Norman assault, terrified by the artillery.

  “They tried to storm the city!” A desperate man shouted.

  “But failed,” a crossbowman said nonchalantly, “you think with all those ballistae and catapults they would get anywhere. No sir. A few pikemen skewered the remnants.”

  “Good,” Kwame said, “they will tell the rest to avoid us I’m sure.”

  “Like annoying a hive of hornets,” Butros admitted, “they will surely come with more and angrier.”

  “We still need to expand the city,” Adaneus said, “granted the new builders are probably Christian, that reminds me we need to start making anti Christian propaganda, a little bit more advanced.”

  Adaneus got some printers to write diatribes. It read:

  The Christians who cannot decide what bread to eat, how many fingers to use when they cross, or in which direction, should not be lecturing anyone about faith, for if god cares about these things he does not deserve worship. Praise Helios.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Granted there were some who grumbled, the proportion of adherents being as follows; 2000 Christians and the 500 new Christian immigrants, the city’s Pagan character was reinforced with the propaganda with perhaps some 500 converting to the new religion, making it more than 75% Pagan, some 8000 Pagan adherents. Andreas was livid but he could not complain, for the city was richer, more prosperous than ever, and more and more of the citizens agreed with Adaneus. Surrounded by enemies but too deadly for the enemies, Adaneus could bide his time getting richer while he waited for opportune moments to strike. He had the richest city in Italy and he knew it, hell within a month he would have the richest city in the Mediterranean dare he say the world. But he knew that Bari must be protected and improved for it to realise its true potential. The magic crystals worked in-lieu of taxes, but his future provinces would have to pay for upkeep. His newspapers became something of a method to distribute his messages across the city. Arab traders brought paper and he could write anything he wanted on them, provided it could be stuck to a wall. Adaneus and Butros realised that a fleet had to be a directive, purchasing ships from merchants.

  “Three large ships for the merchants and a likewise formidable guarding ship,” Adaneus said, “who can provide this to us, is doing a formidable job for the western Roman Republic.”

  A merchant on the docks snorted at the term.

  “You cannot be serious,” the merchant laughed.

  “My gold makes me entirely serious,” Adaneus said, “we will take every city in the Adriatic soon enough.”

  “Adi,” Butros said, “don’t be so braggadocios.”

  “Anyone who wants to fight us, can enjoy a ballistae point in their throat, but first economics,” Adaneus said, “I have a feeble grasp on Italy, I at least have a stable city that doesn’t want to murder me and understands that the Christians are wrong.”

  “You say a lot of things you shouldn’t,” Butros interrupted, “I was a Christian remember.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” Adaneus said, “trust me I have criticisms of islam too, you think the Sunni narrative on Muhammed’s death makes sense?”

  “What are you talking about?” Kwame said, confused.

  “It says he ate a poisoned bone from a jewish woman whose tribe he had just finished slaughtering. First of all what kind of idiot consumes anything from people he had just defeated, second of all, you’re telling me the prophet of god is so stupid as to consume poison? The angels couldn’t warn him in time. Even a fool can taste poison, the meat is bound to taste off right?”

  “It is true, but the Muslims would not be so happy to hear this,” Butros said.

  “The Shia narrative at least makes sense, Hafsa and Ayesha kill Muhammed so that their fathers’ can take over power? It’s at least plausible. The Sunni narrative is frankly an insult to Muhammed, they are saying he is so stupid that he was poisoned wilfully due to poor intellect, it’s almost implying he wasn’t a prophet.”

  The merchant was impressed.

  “So what is so hard to accept about Christianity then?” He wondered.

  “There is no consensus on the old testament, they have no idea how god like christ even is. God the father and the son, and technically Jesus is both god and the son of god, what kind of sense does that even make?”

  “Let’s get back to the trading ship plans, hopefully our merchants don’t say these things,” Butros said, “we need to be a bit more diplomatic with our merchant clients.”

  “Butros, someone must do, how can they get away with such illogic. They converted the whole Mediterranean to illogical idiotic ideas. You know what the Tawaf is Butros, the tawaf is a mimicry of the stars, seven times for the seven deities the Pagan Arabs used to have, seven heavens likewise comes from this same concept, why…”

  “Come on Adaneus shut up please, you are making a scene,” Butros said, “please Adaneus.”

  “Let them refute me then,” Adaneus said, “the Tawaf has Pagan origins, the Arabs used to worship stones it is recounted so, even Umar himself only kissed the black stone because Muhammed did, and why did Muhammed? Because his ancestors did, they destroyed the Dhul Khalasa another stone object, why did they do this?”

  Despite his preaching, he was eventually shut up, and Adaneus hired the merchant vessels within the day, he hoped his city would have its own ship building industry, but for now this was acceptable. 100 sailors on the four ships with 100 crossbowmen with some ballistae being taken from the city to garrison the escort ship.

  “That should make our ships less likely to be looted,” Butros said.

  “Sure,” Adaneus said, “for they are going to carry valuable cargo, as I am sure you are aware.”

  “I have heard the rumours.”

  Adaneus dried cloves, got saffron powder and pepper; frankincense and myrrh would take some time, but frankly he was collecting a bullion that would return with its weight in gold. Collecting frankincense from trees he so meticulously created, collecting cloves and exporting them in massive amounts. 3400 solidi for the fleet he was down to 6800 solidi.

  “The fleet will more than pay for itself,” Kwame assured him.

  Butros likewise nodded his head.