Ioannis Komnenos rises to speak and looks angrily at Makedonios.

I wish to complain about the treatment of the Komnenodoukai. Apart from the walls of Yerevan, which, I might add, were prioritised by me, not a single building has been built so it our lands this term.

You all remember how the Order whined and complained that I supposedly treated them unfairly during my tenure, and yet now they have proved themselves to be hypocrites.

Doubtless, the Ksanthopoulos will attempt to justify himself by claiming that the Order's lands are in more urgent need of development. However, I wish to remind the Magnaura that we have over 9,000 florins sitting in the Imperial Treasury. For what? Emergencies? Even this is absurd, as the empire rakes in around 9,000 florins every two years.

This is nothing but a deliberate attempt to weaken my power. The Megas Logothetes and his lapdog, Kalameteros, have been long plotting my removal, and seek nothing more than that aim. If you do not realise that, then I fear that the decadence of our newly found prosperity has corrupted us all as it did in the days of Caesar.

And who can forget the Ksanthopoulos' enthralling message of hope on the Roman dream? A balanced empire he said. A balanced empire with its capital at Antioch and having the splendor of a bald monk.

Will those of you who are not in his pay realise that all along he has been steering the direction of the Order towards independence from Constantinople? He refused to swear to my father publically, when almost the whole the Magnaura did. He rebuked one of his vassals for swearing to my father. Surely it is such an ungodly and unchivalrous act to swear fealty to one's emperor? But then again, Ksanthopoulos knows all about chivalry. He knows how to massacre the inhabitants of a city, and take its citizens' wealth for his own. And such was the foundation for the reestablishment of Roman authority over Antioch. And this honourable man, displaying all the true characteristics of a worthy chivalrous noble, argued so forcefully for the punishment and exile of a certain Hypatios Manchinos, whose only moral crime was to slaughter a few thousand more than this illustrious man. And this man too, was perfectly just to call for Manchinos' exile, for had not he himself atoned for his sins by a simple and concise apology? But Ksanthopoulos is an honourable man, and so are they all, all honourable men.

Ioannis resumes his seat.