The other requests they did not reject; for instance that some of the Emperor’s less close relations should go a decent distance and receive him on his coming to visit the Emperor for the sake of paying him respect and attention; as also that he should enter with two soldiers; and further that the Emperor should touch his hand and set him at the upper end of the Emperor’s couch. After this conversation the ambassadors departed to go to the place where their rest-quarters had been prepared; they were guarded by a hundred sergeants so that they might not go out by night and spy out the state of the army and as a result bear themselves more disdainfully towards him.
On the following day he arrived with three hundred horsemen and all the Counts at the place where he had conferred with the aforementioned ambassadors the day before, there he picked out six noblemen and took them with him and went off to the ambassadors; the rest he left there to await his return. The former day’s discussions were resumed and as Bohemund was persistent, one of the highest-born Counts, Ubus by name, said to Bohemund, “Not one of us who came with you to wage war against the Emperor, has ever yet struck a blow at any one with his spear. So leave all this talking-you must exchange peace for war.
Bohemund considered it a great slight
“Many words were bandied to and fro, and Bohemund considered it a great slight that all he had asked for from the ambassadors should not be granted. They consented to some things, but refused others, finally Bohemund gave way, making a virtue of necessity, as they say; next he asked them to give their oath that he would be received honourably and that, if the Emperor did not agree to his terms, he should be sent back to his own camp unharmed.
So the Holy Gospels were placed on the table and he asked that hostages should be handed over to his brother Guido and retained by him until such time as he himself returned. The ambassadors agreed to this and then they mutually exchanged oaths to ensure the safety of the hostages. Bohemund assented to this, and after oaths had been taken and given he handed over the hostages, the Sebastus Marianus, the man called Adralestus, and Roger Francus, to his brother Guido, on the understanding that, whether he came to terms of peace with the Emperor or not, he should comply with the oaths and send them back to the Emperor safe and sound.
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