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“She did have a passion for you once.”
A short-lived one that ended in a wallop over my head. “Why would she take advantage of me whilst I was in the death-sleep? If she wanted to swive, she only had to ask.”
“Mayhap she yearned for a child ... your child, and feared you would ne’er wake up to give it to her the natural way.”
Impossible! It never happened!
Did it?
“Ahem!”
He and Finn turned to see a servant standing in the doorway. “The general is ready to see you now.”
As they stood and prepared to walk into one of the smaller reception rooms, a half-dozen men in uniforms walked out. They were minor generals in both the tagmatic and thematic armies, each of whom Sidroc and Finn knew. Short greetings were exchanged by all.
Byzantium was divided into military districts called themes, each of which had its own armies, garrisons, and such. Then there was a whole other group of military men assigned to the palace in Miklagard. These were called tagmatic armies. General Sclerus was the commander-in-chief of them all.
But the presence of these generals together and the way they’d regarded Sidroc caused a prickling sensation to run up the back of his neck.
“Uh-oh!” Finn said.
“Definitely,” Sidroc agreed.
More uh-ohs resounded in their heads once they entered the room where General Sclerus was studying a huge map spread across a table. He was not alone.
The emperor, John Tzimisces, wearing a simple tunic and braies—not his usual royal garb, though the garments were of what appeared to be silk or softest wool—lounged before a table, sipping at a goblet of wine. Also, there was Patriarch Antony sitting rigidly and somber, telling his beads in his lap; leastways, that’s what Sidroc hoped he was doing with his hands in his lap. And even more ominous was the presence of Alexander Mylonas, the rodent-faced eparch of Miklagard.
While the emperor ruled all of Byzantium, the eparch, or prefect, controlled almost every facet of life and business in the Golden City. He was a man much feared by the merchants and common folks, with good reason. Ianthe had endured more than one encounter with the vile prefect.
“Your eminence,” Sidroc said as he and Finn bowed from the waist before the emperor. They waited to straighten until the emperor replied, “Welcome Lord Guntersson. Welcome Lord Vidarsson.”
Neither of them were lords by any stretch of the imagination, but they did not bother to correct the ruler. Not anymore. They had done so on several occasions in the past to no avail. If the emperor wanted to think of them as Norse lords, so be it.
Still standing, he and Finn parroted, “Your holiness,” to the patriarch, who nodded at them. They also exchanged greetings with General Sclerus and Prefect Mylonas, both of whom acknowledged their presence but with no particular warmth.
Oh well. So that was how it was going to be.
“You wished to speak with me?” the emperor said right off.
Was it meaningful that he and Finn were not asked to sit and share a cup of wine?
Probably.
“Your majesty, we wish to resign from the Varangian Guard and return to our homelands,” Sidroc said. No one in the room seemed surprised by the request, but as silence loomed, Sidroc went on, “Finn and I have served you well these past five years, but ’tis past time we settled our own estates.” Not that they had any at the moment, but the emperor didn’t need to know that.
The general glanced up from his map reading and asked, “Do you have any grievance over the way you have been treated as Varangian guardsmen?”
“Not at all. We have been well paid and respected.”
“Except for our pay for this past year’s service, which is due about ... oh, now,” Finn added with the subtlety of a bull in a glass palace.
“Is there a reason why they have not been paid?” the emperor asked General Sclerus.
Red-faced, the general said, “So many men are to be paid from this last returning group. ’Tis just a delay.” To Sidroc and Finn, he said woodenly, “If you go to the minister of finance today, you will be paid.”
“Many thanks,” he and Finn said.
“When would you like to end your service?” the emperor asked then.
