Consul Psellon nodded vigorously. 'It has come directly from the governor's own hand,' he confirmed.
'Oh, most certainly it has,' agreed the eparch sourly. 'Yet, knowing nothing of the message-save its importance-you travelled night and day to bring it to me.'
'Of course, eparch,' Psellon replied.
'How many travelled with you?'
Psellon hesitated; his eyes shifted to the magister, who stared straight ahead.
'Come!' said the eparch sharply. 'The question is perfectly simple. How many travelled with you?'
'Four others,' answered Psellon uncertainly.
'I see. You may go, both of you.' Nicephorus dismissed Sergius and Psellon with a disdainful gesture, and watched them until they left the room. 'What have you to say of this?' inquired the eparch of Nikos when they had gone.
'I think it fortunate that I was detained,' the komes replied. 'Since I am ready, very little additional provision need be made. We can leave the city by midday. I will make the arrangements.'
'I take your answer to mean that you believe this communication to be genuine?'
'Certainly,' said Nikos, 'I think it safe to say Exarch Honorius seeks only the good of the empire.'
'Of that I have no doubt,' agreed the eparch, 'no doubt whatever-if Honorius wrote it.'
'I see no cause to question the veracity of the document,' said the komes mildly. 'It is in the governor's hand, and carries his seal after all.'
'Yes, it does. I see that it does.' The eparch, his expression one of doubt and bafflement, sat down slowly in his chair.
'Now, then, if you will excuse me, I will make the necessary arrangements. I assume we will want the Danes to accompany us?'
'Yes, yes,' replied Nicephorus, his gaze vacant; his mind was clearly on other matters. 'Make the arrangements by all means.'
In three strides Nikos was gone, and with not so much as a glance in my direction, though he must have known I was there the whole time. The eparch sat in his chair staring at the half-folded parchment as if it were an object he had never seen before. As no one else was near, I went to him.
'Eparch? Can I help you in any way?'
'Honorius sends word of betrayal,' he announced absently. 'He says we must come to him.'
As the eparch was deeply distracted, I plucked up my courage and asked, 'May I see the message?'
'If you wish,' he said. He made no move to hand it to me, but he watched me while I read.
The message was terse and stilted, indicating that the caliph planned to use the completion of the peace council to renew hostilities between the Arabs and Byzantium. As details of this treachery were too sensitive to impart by messenger, the governor requested the eparch to join him in Sebastea at once, and suggested travelling with a body-guard.
'You are a man with some experience of the written word,' Nicephorus said when I finished. 'Can you tell me anything of the man who wrote this?'
The script was Greek, and written in a bold, confident hand; each letter was neatly formed and orderly, if slightly small. 'I would say the man was a scribe,' I ventured, 'a monk, perhaps. He writes distinctly-his words are well-chosen. Is it truly the governor's hand?'
'Yes, it is,' answered Nicephorus. 'And that is what worries me most.'
'Then I do not understand, eparch.'
'I know Honorius, you see. We served together in Gaul, and again, briefly, in Ephesus long ago.' he confided. 'I do not think Nikos or anyone else in Trebizond knows this, and I have told no one since coming here. But I will cut out my own tongue before I confess he wrote that letter.
'Look at it!' he said, with mounting agitation. 'The greeting is wrong. We are old friends, Honorius and I. He knew I was coming-knew I would be staying in his house. Yet, he sends the message, not to me, but by way of the magister. What is more, he addresses me not as a man he has known for forty years, but by title only, as if I were a mere functionary of the emperor he had never met.'
I began to see what concerned the eparch now, and agreed that it did seem strange. The wording of the letter was stiffly formal-precise, yet distant. 'Do you suspect forgery?'
He shook his head. 'No; he wrote it. But I cannot believe he wrote it to me.'
'Perhaps he did not wish to betray your friendship-should the letter go astray.'
'Perhaps.' The eparch's tone suggested he thought otherwise. 'That letter betrays precious little, it seems to me.'
'You suspect another reason for sending a message such as this,' I concluded. 'What could it be?'
'That is what I am asking myself,' he said, shaking his head slowly. He rose from his chair, his food untouched. 'I fear we must make ready to leave, Aidan,' he said, crossing the courtyard. 'Please, inform Harald.'
'What about the letter?' I asked, indicating the parchment still lying on the table.
Misunderstanding my question, the eparch replied, 'No doubt all will become clear once we arrive in Sebastea.'
He left the courtyard and returned to his room. As no one else was around, I picked up the letter and examined it again. It appeared neither more nor less odd than before; I thought, it may be genuine after all. Folding it carefully, I retied the black band, and tucked the document inside my mantle with every intention of returning it to the eparch. Then I hastened to find Harald and alert him to our unexpected change in plans.
43
The gates of Trebizond were open wide and the road stretched out before us. It was a little past midday, the sun bright in a late winter's sky; the air was cool, but the sun warm on our faces and backs. The road to Sebastea was a well-travelled path-deep-rutted owing to the rains, and the recent invasion of visitors attending the fair.
Nikos travelled on horseback, and the eparch rode in an enclosed wagon, pulled by a two-horse team; three additional wagons and teams brought the provisions. The Sea Wolves, over a hundred in all, marched in two long columns either side of the wagons, spears and axes in their hands, shields on their backs.
Although Nikos kept insisting that we did not need so many, the eparch had decided to take the largest body-guard at his command. Leaving behind only enough men to guard the ships, Harald, glad for the change of routine, had formed a veritable army to escort us to Sebastea. And there were others with us, too: a fair few of the traders and merchants attending the pagan fair-regarding the free use of an armed bodyguard as an opportunity too valuable to miss-decided to make their return journey a few days early, swelling our ranks considerably. Thus, we formed a body of perhaps two hundred or more altogether.
The first two days the weather remained good: fair and bright, the sky cloudless. The third day dawned grey, with a thin, miserable rain lashed by a rough north wind. The Sea Wolves seemed not to mind the cold and wet, singing now and then, and talking to one another in loud, raucous voices. The wagons themselves rumbled along with much groaning and shouting from the drivers, sometimes in the road, more often out of it, for the ruts often became too difficult for the horses.
I kept my place behind Jarl Harald, who walked beside the eparch's wagon. Tolar and Thorkel had been left behind with the ships, but Gunnar had been chosen to go with us, and he walked with me sometimes, and we talked. The chatter, though trivial, occupied the tedium, but did little to keep my mind from the cold. I had become used to the mild winter weather and the icy damp seeped into my bones and made me shiver despite my cloak and mantle.
We marched from daybreak to midday, and then stopped to rest and eat at a place where a river crossed the road. The stream-little more than a muddy rivulet this time of year-became a torrent in late spring, it was said, and eventually joined the Tigris far to the south. Across the river, the road divided. Theodosiopolis lay two days' journey to the east, and Sebastea four or five days south and west.
After we had eaten and rested, we forded the stream and continued on. The small sheep-herding villages grew fewer and further apart as the land gradually became more rugged; the hills became steeper, the valleys
