Etoile promising all those things with no backing whatsoever was pretty funny. I'm glad they pointed it out to her. While the weak king indeed might readily agree to anything, it's also true that a weak king would as soon forget what he promised if he was faced with another tough situation, such as all of his generals (and his brother if still alive) arguing against withdrawing. There's no promise a man like that could give that anyone sane would believe until everything is finished. Another detail worth noticing is that Etoile only readily gave those empty promises, but promised nothing that she would actually be capable of promising, such as a offering her own sword to Arslan. But then again, if Arslan wouldn't be likely to think her way to begin with, she wouldn't have come at all. One might instead think that her personal mission was to bring the news, that's it. The soft and naive Arslan would be doing things this was even if she hadn't begged so pitifully.

A battle of 3.5 armies ought to be interesting in any case.