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Thus the frontiers of the Roman Empire remained ungarrisoned, and the troops had nothing to subsist upon except the benevolence of the charitable. There was a certain body of soldiers, about 3,500 in number, called "Scholares," who had been originally appointed as an imperial palace-guard, and received a larger pay from the imperial treasury than the rest of the army.
"How came ye so many here?" she asked in astonishment, as they still gathered from the farther courts a number far greater than the usual Palace-guard chiefly a company of knights and men entitled to bear arms, but among them many of the more peaceful citizens. "Whom serve ye all?" She looked keenly from face to face: her words seemed a challenge.
Pale with anxiety, but at the same time with a feeling of delight that the plot had been discovered, I entered the divan, where I beheld my brother in the custody of the palace-guard.
He secretly informed the ex-Emperor that Yoshinaka had planned a retreat to the east, carrying his Majesty with him, and this information, at a time when the excesses committed by Yoshinaka's troops had provoked much indignation, induced Go-Shirakawa to obtain from Hiei-zan and Miidera armed monks to form a palace-guard under the command of the kebiishi, Taira Tomoyasu, a declared enemy of Yoshinaka.
He was, under that monarch, successively gentleman of the bedchamber, captain of the palace-guard, head-steward of the household, and Governor of Berry, Blois, etc.
But so long as there was a palace-guard about the gates to secure the safety of the Sultan and his corrupt military oligarchy, so long as there were houris to divert their leisure, tribute of youths to swell their armies, and taxes wrung from starving subjects to maintain their pomp, there was not one of those who held the reins of government who cared the flick of an eyelash for the needs of the nations on whom the Empire rested, for the cultivation of its soil that would yield a hundredfold to the skilled husbandman, or for the exploitation and development of its internal wealth.
Save for those required to preserve order, the survivors of the troops were back in barracks long before sunset, and the palace-guard had been reorganised under Kona's personal supervision.
On making his way to the bedroom of the Czar, who was asleep, the two Hungarians who formed the only guard ran away after striking one or two blows; the palace-guard were already on an understanding with the conspirators. The unfortunate Czar, pursued by the assassins, took refuge behind a screen.
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