The Oathsworn Series Books 1 to 5. Robert Low

      ‘You know our Archbishop?’ the Kephale asked smoothly, lifting his cold-sweating cup.

      ‘I am paying my respects to him, from Choniates in the Great City,’ I answered casually. ‘I have a letter for him.’

      ‘Architos Choniates?’ asked Tagardis, pausing with cup to lip.

      I nodded, pretended to savour the wine with my eyes closed. Under my lashes, I saw the pair of them exchange knowing looks.

      ‘My commander will no doubt wish to have you presented to him, if you will. Later this evening?’ said Tagardis. ‘The Archbishop will also be there.’

      This was new. I thought he was the commander and said as much.

      He smiled and shook his head. ‘A compliment which I accept gratefully, my friend,’ he said, all teeth and smiles and lies. ‘But I am garrison commander in Larnaca only. The commander of the island’s forces is a general, Leo Balantes.’

      That smacked me in the forehead, though I tried to cover it by coughing on the wine, which was one of those deep-thinking moments my men praised me for; all Greeks think barbarians like us cannot drink wine, or appreciate it when we do. They smiled indulgently.

      Leo Balantes, the one rumoured to have tried to riot the Basileus out of his throne the year before. So this was what had happened to him: a threadbare command at the arse-edge of what a Greek would consider civilisation, surrounded by sea-raiders and infidels.

      I remembered that he was a sword-brother of John Tzimisces, the general they called Red Boots and the one currently commanding the Basileus’s armies at Antioch. That favour had at least prevented Leo from being blinded, the Great City’s preferred method of dealing with awkward commanders.

      We met in a simple room at the top of that solid-square fortress, dining on what seemed to be soldier’s fare – fine for me, though the Kephale and the Archbishop hardly ate. Balantes was square-faced and running to jowl, with forearms like hams and iron-grey hair and eyebrows, the latter as long as spider’s legs.

      He requested the letter, even though it was addressed to Honorius. It seemed, even to me, that we were conspirators, confirmed as Archbishop Honorius, a dried-up stick of a man with too many rings and a face like a ravaged hawk, started to explain the situation and began by looking right and left for hidden listeners. It was almost comical, but the implications of it made me sweat.

      ‘The … package … that you have to deliver to Choniates,’ the Archbishop said, while insects looped through the open shutters and died in a blaze of glory on the sconces, ‘is in the church of the Archangel Michael in Kato Lefkara. It was left in the charge of monks there, to be delivered here.’

      ‘What is it?’ I asked.

      Balantes wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and said, ‘No business of yours. Yours is simply to get it and take it to your master who will take it to Choniates. Where is this Starkad I was told of anyway?’

      ‘Delayed,’ I replied. ‘He has other business.’

      ‘I have heard of his other business – some renegade apostate monk,’ growled Balantes, scowling. ‘I also know you wolves were paid enough for him to put that aside until this task was done.’

      ‘I am here to do it,’ I replied with as mead-honey a grin as I could pour out, spreading my hands to embrace them all. ‘Simply get me the package and I will set sail at once.’

      Now Balantes looked embarrassed.

      ‘Not quite so simple,’ Tagardis said, hesitantly, looking to his chief and back to me. ‘There was … a problem.’

      And he saga-told it all out, like a bad drunk hoiking up too much mead over his neighbours.

      The island had been once jointly ruled by the Great City and the Arabs, which arrangement Nikephoras Phocas had ended by making it clear if the Arabs didn’t pack up their tents and leave, he would kick their burnous-covered arses into the sea. Most had gone. Some had not and one, who called himself Farouk, had taken to raiding from the inland hills.

      ‘Unfortunately, he has grown quite strong,’ Tagardis said. ‘Now he has actually captured the town of Lefkara – Kato Lefkara is a village a little way beyond it and we have had no news from that quarter for several months.’

      ‘How strong has he grown?’ I asked, seeing from which quarter the wind was blowing.

      ‘A hundred or so Saracens,’ Balantes grunted, using the Greek word for them, Sarakenoi.