Aegadian islands, Sicily, August 1st, 1301
Roger de Lauria, true to his reputation as the greatest admiral of the era, instead of taking the shortest route home which would had brought himself in front of Syracuse and Vatatzes fleet had instead sailed westwards hoping to circumnavigate western Sicily and sail north to Naples avoiding Vatatzes. Alexandros had though chased after the Angevin fleet and while Lauria had a head start his ships were both damaged and heavier in the water from several weeks at see. And thus finally the fleet of Alexandros Doukas Vatatzes despot of Sicily, of 28 galleys joined battle with the Angevin fleet of 15 galleys between Marsala and Favignana island in the 1st of August. Lauria's fleet even damaged and outnumbered nearly two to one still dealt nearly as much damage as it received. But Vatatzes pressed on despite casualties and so did his crews enraged by the massacre of the captured Messinese crews by Lauria after the battle of Cape Orlando and the treatment of Sicilian prisoners both at Cape Orlando and after the battle of Ponza the previous year. Not a single Angevin galley survived the battle with most captured and the rest sunk.
Messina, August 10th, 1301
Roger de Lauria, spat at the closest of his captors, only to be hit over the head for his troubles. That damned Greek had dared throw himself, a noble, to the hand of commoners. And these particular commoners had every reason to hate him, since he had massacred nearly two thousands of their brethren at Cape Orlando, refusing to take prisoners. He had his reasons, after the death of his nephew. But the Messinese who had lost brothers, fathers and sons to his revenge were of a different opinion. History would record that Alexandros Vatatzes gave Lauria to the people of Messine who executed him. The details for Laria before he was impaled and died were rather messier.
Syracuse, August 20th, 1301
Robert d'Anjou suppressed a sigh as he looked at the fortifications of Syracuse from the inside. The Greek prince had been clearly busy at work for the past two decades. Huge forts had been built in the heights of Euryalus and Epipolae on the land side. More forts lined the harbor while the older castello Maniakes in the island of Ortygia had been further reinforced. Curtain walls dotted with multiple towers linked the forts. The city would be a bitch to take by force but then he had learned as much two years ago. But he still had hoped to enter the city as a conqueror not as a prisoner of war. His treatment by the duke, no despot he called himself, was impeccable very much unlike the late Lauria. But how much would his imprisonment cost his father?
Catane, September, 1301
The wall shook as the stone unleashed by the counterweight trebuchet hit it. Alexis Philanthropenos had closed on the town from the land just as the fleet blockaded it from the sea. How much the trapped French army insite would hold was anyone's guess.
Florence, November 1301
The army of Charles of Valois entered the city in support of the papist Black Guelphs, looting the city, killing many of the opposing White Guelphs and forcing others to exile. Among the exiled would be a certain Dante Alighieri and act that gain Charles his place in hell, in the Divine Comedy. Whether Charles wold ever learn about securing his position to eternity...
