In early July, Vitus and Theodore jointly issued an order to recruit civilians on a large scale throughout their territory. Achaea recruited two thousand, and Morea six thousand.
Considering how the civilians might feel, he planned to rotate them every three months, with another batch of farmers replacing them in October.
"By rights, prices in the Peloponnese should be lower than in Italy, so we shouldn't go over budget."
With that in mind, Vitus personally stationed himself in Corinth to oversee this costly defensive project.
Once the first batch of laborers had arrived, he organized them into twenty companies of a hundred men each and ordered them to go to the hills several hundred meters beyond the wall, fell trees, then haul the wood back inside to build barracks and stockpile fuel.
Before long, this grand undertaking caught the attention of the Duchy of Athens to the north. Duke Antonio sent an envoy to ask why the Eastern Roman Empire was cutting down trees in the buffer zone. Vitus replied without hesitation:
"We're building a wall to keep from becoming vassals of the Ottomans, just like you."
After stockpiling enough timber, Vitus directed the workers to build a camp modeled on the military camps of Ancient Rome:
The barracks were laid out in a grid, with eleven rooms in each row. The room at the edge served as a latrine, while the other ten were for living in. Each room held ten people and contained simple wooden beds. There were no stoves inside; everyone ate together in the mess hall.
They also built communal bathhouses and drainage channels to reduce the spread of disease as much as possible.
In mid-July, Vitus directed the laborers to build kilns for mass-producing bricks, while assigning others to dig a trench outside the city in preparation for laying the foundations.
To ensure the work was done properly, he rarely left Corinth. He spent most of his time inspecting the site, and the rest handling government affairs and training the army. Before he knew it, October had arrived.
As the weather turned colder, the first batch of laborers was about to go home. Theodore led the second batch to the site and took the opportunity to inspect the project's progress.
Vitus knew what his second brother was thinking. He had his guards bring over a thick stack of account books and told Theodore to look through them as he pleased and ask him about anything he didn't understand.
Theodore left that sort of tedious work to the clerks who had come with him. Curious, he went to inspect the new-style wall, then asked for a loaded heavy steel crossbow and pulled the trigger at a straw dummy beyond the wall.
"You were right. This design really does help the defenders aim."
Theodore casually handed the steel crossbow to a guard and toured the camp inside the wall. The layout was orderly, and everyone walked along the right side of the roads, lined up for meals and baths. No one was throwing trash on the ground.
"Their discipline is even stricter than the army in Morea! Are you keeping them in line with military law?"
Vitus said, "Yes. I find time to train them with spears. If the Ottomans invade, they can quickly join the defense of the city."
Theodore entered a storeroom filled with three-meter-long spears and simple crossbows. The shafts were made from trees on the nearby mountains, with cheap cast-iron spearheads fitted to the tips.
Vitus picked up a spear and swung it twice. "Spears are the cheapest, most practical weapons, and they're very simple to use—just thrust forward. They're perfect for quickly expanding an army. Simple crossbows are cheap too. All these weapons cost only a thousand Ducats."
After looking around, the group headed to the mess hall for a meal. A long line had formed outside. There were only two dishes for dinner: black bread and a bowl of vegetable soup, with the occasional small piece of fish visible inside.
Vitus explained, "I placed an order with the nearby fishing villages. They send over a boatload of fish every day. Each person gets only a little, but at least they get a taste of meat."
Theodore didn't care what the peasants at the bottom ate. He left the noisy, boisterous mess hall and went to the meeting room to find the clerks checking the accounts. They told him there had been no embezzlement on the project.
"Is that so?"
Theodore pretended to pick up an account book and leaf through it. Before long, a faint aroma drifted in from outside. He looked around. "Is the food ready? Bring it in. We've been on the road all day, and I'm rather hungry."
As soon as he finished speaking, a guard carried in a huge silver platter bearing a Neapolitan specialty—lasagna. Theodore curiously cut off a piece with a table knife, and soon the whole meeting room was filled with a rich, milky aroma.
He'd eaten the lasagna Cleopa made and had heard how the dish was prepared: a layer of pasta, a layer of meat sauce, a layer of cheese, usually repeated three or four times, then baked in a hearth. But today's version tasted even better. It seemed the cook had improved the seasoning ratios.
Theodore ate with increasing enthusiasm, occasionally washing it down with a glass of Retsina. Half an hour later, he returned to his bedroom, burping, to rest.
For the next week, Vitus kept making different dishes for his brother—pizza, dumplings, Central Asian-style roast meat, meat pies in flaky pastry... He did it to distract Theodore and keep him from meddling at the construction site. On October 8, Vitus finally saw Theodore off, and life returned to normal.
"Ah, I have to keep the people above me happy while making sure the work is done right. I feel like a project manager caught between two sides, taking flak from both."
By November, late autumn had arrived, and rainy days were becoming more frequent. Fortunately, the Peloponnese was in southern Europe, where daytime winter temperatures hovered around 10 degrees Celsius, so the construction crews could keep working.
So far, they had completed 1.8 miles of the new-style wall, about thirty percent of the total work, but had already spent half the project budget—forty thousand Florins.
"At this rate, I'll have no choice but to borrow money from Italian merchants. I hope Di Maggio Bank will offer me a favorable interest rate, given our relationship."
Vitus spread out a sheet of paper and, as usual, wrote a letter asking Constantinople for aid. Though there was no chance they would send funds, he still wrote regularly so the emperor and the other high-ranking officials would understand the difficulties in the Peloponnese.
However, that wasn't the only trouble he faced.
As the work proceeded in orderly fashion, word reached the Ottomans. In late November, they sent an envoy.
"The Ottomans?" Vitus put down his account book and hurried outside to meet the envoy.
Judging by his attire, the man was probably a low-ranking Ottoman noble. He wore a "Derbent" turban, with a brass badge sewn onto its front, engraved with an ancient tribal emblem that signified he came from a family with a long lineage.
The envoy's upper body was wrapped in a thick, dark-blue wool robe. The curved sword hanging from his belt had an ivory hilt. He wore loose dark-red riding trousers, with exceptionally wide legs for ease of riding.
"I am Vitus Palaiologos. What business do you have?"
The envoy didn't dismount. Sitting high in his saddle, he looked down at Vitus. "Effective immediately, you are to stop construction and demolish the new wall you have already built."
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