The whole barbarian race is like that, it is always agape for presents and money, but is very little inclined to carry out the purpose for which the money is given. So he merely handed Buturnites some letters and dismissed him. The ambassadors also met the Count Iatzulinus,[Joscelin de Courtney] on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, who had come to worship at the Holy Sepulchre, and discussed what was fitting with him. But when they discovered that he answered in the same strain as Balduinus, they left Jerusalem without having accomplished anything.
When they found that Pelctranus was no longer among the living, they asked for the moneys they had deposited in the episcopal palace. But Pelctranus’ son and the bishop of Tripoli delayed giving them back the money for some time, so at last the ambassadors threatened them saying, ” If you do not give back the money to us, you are not true servants of the Emperor and you are proved not to observe the same fidelity to him as Pelctranus and his father Isangeles did. Very well then, you shall not have an abundant supply of necessaries from Cyprus in the future, nor shall the Duke of Cyprus come to your aid, and then you will perish by famine.”
The solemn oath of fidelity to the Emperor
After they had ‘let out every reef,’ as the proverb says, and tried first honeyed words and then threats and yet could not persuade Pelctranus’ son to give up the money, they judged it expedient to make him take a solemn oath of fidelity to the Emperor, and then to give him only the gift destined for his father, consisting of gold and silver stamped money and garments of divers kinds. On receipt of these the son took the solemn oath of fidelity to the Emperor. The rest of the money they took back to Eumathius and with it purchased well-bred horses from Damascus and Edessa and even Arabia. From there they crossed the Syrian sea and gulf of Pamphylia and then gave up sailing as they considered the land safer than the sea, and made their way to the Chersonese where the Emperor was, and after crossing the Hellespont they reached the Emperor.
III And now troubles fell upon him one after the other, like a snowstorm, for at sea the chiefs of Pisa, Genoa and Lombardy were preparing to lay waste all the sea-board by means of their fleet; and on land in the East the Ameer Saisan was again trying to get hold of Philadelphia and the maritime districts. Consequently the Emperor decided he must leave the capital and go to some place from which he could carry on the war against both parties. So he went to the Chersonese and called up troops from all parts both from land and sea, and set apart a goodly army to go over the Scamander to Atramytium or even Thracesium and stay there.
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