“As soon as possible,” Finn blurted out.
Sidroc shot him a glare of warning. “We have returned from a long mission only days ago. We would not like to delay our passage until the Norse fjords freeze over the winter months.” A perfectly logical explanation. Now, if only they would accept it!
The emperor, the eparch, and the patriarch exchanged meaningful glances, which could only spell trouble.
He and Finn exchanged meaningful glances, too. Theirs spelled, “Uh-oh!” Again!
“There is a short mission we would ask you to complete before you leave,” the emperor said.
“Both of us?” Finn demanded.
Sidroc was going to kill Finn for his rudeness, if someone else didn’t do it for him.
“One would be fine, two would be better.” The emperor’s tone now was not as friendly as when they’d first entered.
“What is it you would have us do ... if we agree?” Sidroc emphasized. It was one thing to be polite, another to be weak.
The emperor waved a hand for General Sclerus to explain.
“The muscle of the Byzantine empire has been increasingly in the strongholds we have in the borders, where our warlord generals have maintained a defense against the Moslems. But many of these warlords, the dynatoi, have grown too powerful. We cannot allow it to continue.”
“Greedy. And ungodly,” Patriarch Antony said, speaking for the first time. “They must be stopped lest Byzantium becomes another Sodom and Gomorrah.”
The emperor raised his brows at that possibility, but did not correct the holy man. It was an exaggeration, Sidroc presumed. And really, didn’t the emperor come from warlord stock himself?
Sidroc was familiar with that biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he would be damned if he was going to be the Greek’s pillar of salt. As if reading his mind, Finn whispered to him in an undertone, “I would not look good in salt.”
“What did you say?” the general demanded.
“Just telling Sidroc that we need more information,” Finn lied.
“Precisely what do you want us to do?” Sidroc asked, looking at the emperor, Sclerus, and the patriarch in turn. He had no idea what role the eparch played in all this.
“The border properties are not paying their taxes properly,” the eparch said, “and we suspect they are harboring criminals who must be brought to justice.”
The eparch was second in power only to the emperor in Miklagard. He enforced the law of the land, tracking down culprits and trying them in the courts. Sometimes criminals were flogged on the spot. He supervised all the people and goods coming into and leaving the country. Anyone who wanted to do business in the city needed to get a permit from him. He even set prices and wages for goods and services, and regulated taxes. Some said he had a thousand people working for him from his headquarters in the Praetorion, which also housed the prison, on the Mese halfway between the Augustaion and the forum. A man not to be trifled with, for a certainty.
So, seeing the eparch’s involvement, Sidroc concluded that this was about money as well as fear of eroding power.
“I repeat, what would you have us do?” Sidroc was beginning to suspect they had been set up. Recognizing that he and Finn wanted to leave, they were using that as leverage. “Surely you do not expect us to lead troops into those areas. It sounds like a massive operation.”
The general shook his head. “We are not looking for an outright fight. Not at this point, anyway. What we want is information.”
“Spies? You want us to spy?” Sidroc was incredulous. He was a fighter, not a slyboots who could slip in and out of dark corners.
“Yes,” the general answered, “but only on one warlord, Steven Bardas, and his holding, two days’ ride by horse or camel in the mountains close to Byzantium. You would only be gone a week, or two.”
The scorn in the general’s tone was telling. It was a well-known fact that the Sclerus and Bardas families had been at odds with each other for generations. They were dynasties, really. Warring dynasties. And the connections were many and complicated. For example, the emperor’s first wife, Maria, had been a Bardas.
“Would not Greek soldiers do better for this role?” Finn asked. “Sidroc and I do not exactly blend in.” ’Twas true. They were taller than the average Greek and clearly Nordic in appearance, Finn more so with his blond hair.
“That is the best part,” the emperor interjected. “Apparently Bardas is recruiting mercenaries, including my Varangian guardsmen.”
“Won’t he be suspicious?” Sidroc could not believe he was even considering another assignment, and one as a spy, at that. He was a soldier, not a sneak-about.
“You two can convince him otherwise,” the general said. “We would not ask if we did not think you were capable.”
Right. Why not just ask us to walk through fire, or put a sword through our own hearts? “If we undertake this one last mission,” Sidroc addressed the emperor, “do we have your oath to release us from our duties, with bonus pay?”