"Tell me, knight, upon your honor, how many men were lost in battle?"
The knight answered:
"Captain, it is known that of the men killed in battle, those who were drowned and those taken prisoner, we've lost eleven thousand seven hundred twenty-two men."
The emperor said:
"Captain, I beg you to do whatever has to be done, out of reverence for God and love of me, so that you can leave in fifteen or twenty days with all your men to help those miserable people."
"Oh, Sire!" said Tirant. "How can Your Majesty say that we won't have left in twenty days? In that time the enemy could attack the city, and they are so powerful that they could invade it."
Tirant again asked the emissary how many men there might be in the enemy's forces. The emissary answered:
"In faith, there are many Turks and they are very skillful in warfare, and are cruel, ferocious men. In our opinion and according to what some prisoners say, they number more than eight hundred thousand."
"My feeling," said Tirant, "is that a royal proclamation should be read throughout the city. All those who have hired themselves out, and those who want to, should go to the Imperial House to receive their payment, and they should all be ready to leave in six days."
The emperor thought that was good advice, and he thanked Tirant. As soon as the proclamation was read, all the grandees outside the city were notified and they were all soon there with their horses rested. And those who had come from Sicily were ready. The bad news of the losses that had been sustained ran throughout the city, and many of the townsfolk, both men and women, gathered in the market square. Some were crying for their brothers, others for their sons, some for their friends and relatives, and still others for the destruction of the empire. Most of the empire was lost, and the hope of the emperor and those around him was placed only in God. They were afraid there would be great starvation and thirst because of the enemy's victory, and that the city would be burned, and they could imagine themselves in captivity and miserable slavery. Two of the empire's barons told the emperor that he should send his daughter Carmesina to Hungary to be with her sister.