But perhaps there was a person who contributed to this disease and increased the sufferings he bore from this cup of his, so full of bitterness; however I will only suggest it in a few words, but not tell the whole story. Although the Empress smeared the rim of the cup with honey and contrived to make much of his suffering slip down easily, through being his ever-watchful guardian, yet this man must be added to our description and may be called a third reason of the Emperor’s malady; and he was not only the immediate but the most effective cause, to use the traditional language of physicians.
For he did not only attack him once and then disappear, but he was always present and his companion, just as the most subtle humours are present in the bloodvessels. Nay more, if one reflected on that man’s nature, he was not only the cause of disease, but actually a malady itself and its severest symptom. But it behoves me to bite my tongue and restrain my words and not run off the track, however eager I may be to leap upon those villains. But I will reserve my story about him to a fitting moment.
The Emperor had crossed to Darnalis
V Now let my history resume its narrative. The Emperor had crossed to Darnalis on the opposite coast and was in camp there, and there our narrative had left him. And soon all flocked to him like a snowstorm, and crossed to him who was staying in that place, partly because he vras awaiting the arrival of them all, and partly in the hope that his excessive pains would diminish. The Empress was with him taking care of him and lightening the pains in his feet by various kinds of tendance.
When he saw the full moon, he said to her, ” If the Turks really think of sallying forth to plunder, now is the fittest time for it, and I am annoyed that I have missed this opportunity.” He said this in the evening and at dawn the eunuch in attendance on their Majesties’ bedchamber announced that the Turks had made an attack upon Nicaea, and shewed them a letter from Eustathius Camytzes, at that time governor of that city, describing what they had done. Immediately, without waiting a little or delaying at all, and as if oblivious of his continuous pains, the Emperor started in a war-chariot for Nicaea, holding the whip himself in his right hand.
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