"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.

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 deeper. Small trees and sparse grass gave way to rocks and prickly shrubs of various kinds. The wind began to screech and moan as it scoured the bare rocky hills, making a cold, lonely sound. The travelling company, so spirited the first few days, sank into silence and melancholy.

The next day was worse. The rain settled into a dull, spitting patter and continued through the day. I wrapped my sodden cloak around me and thought about the warm security of the scriptorium aglow in the ruddy blaze of a peat fire. Ah, mo croi!

Day's end found us in a cramped little gully between two steep hills. Having just made one arduous climb, and not yet ready to face another, we stopped to make camp, grateful at least for the respite from the wind. The ground was rocky and uneven and, except for a few diminutive, bedraggled-looking pines, devoid of vegetation. A stony cliff rose sheer from one side of the road; on the other, a narrow, deep-sided ravine contained a stream which was beginning to flow swiftly now due to the recent rain.

There was nothing to use for firewood, and what little fuel we had was needed to cook our evening meal, thus we spent a cold night huddled close to the rock face where the rain could not get at us so easily. Just before dawn, I was awakened by water dripping on my neck, leaking down from a rock directly above, so I got up and stumbled to the eparch's wagon and crawled beneath it.

This, I believe, is what saved me.

I had only closed my eyes again, when I heard a sound like the cracking of tree roots in the earth. I listened for a moment, and it came again-but from a direction I could not discern. Then I heard a rumbling sound like thunder, but closer and sharper. I opened my eyes. The sound instantly became a loud clattering crash and heavy objects began striking down, shaking the very ground.

In the dim half-light of an overcast dawn, I saw the sheer cliff-face in motion: rocks and stones, falling, sliding, collapsing, tumbling down upon us. I rolled further under the wagon, drew up my legs and cowered behind a stout wheel just as a huge stone struck the back of the wagon and shoved it sideways.

Men caught in the slide awoke screaming in terror and alarm as the rocks fell upon them. Many, however, were crushed in their sleep, never knowing what killed them.

The fall subsided almost as soon as it had begun. The last stones thudded to the ground and then all was still, and deathly quiet.

The silence gave way to the moans of the injured. I crept from the shelter of the wagon to see that the base of the cliff had been obliterated by the rockslide. I stood slowly and peered through the murk of the dust-thick air; all around me lay misshapen heaps of shattered stone.

I moved cautiously forward, trying to see if there were men I might help. I took two steps and heard far above me the pattering clatter of loose pebbles raining down. Fearing the rockslide had begun again, I glanced up and glimpsed instead a figure moving quickly back from the edge of the clifftop. In the same instant, I felt, rather than heard, a swift surge of movement and I jumped aside as a horse clattered by. There was someone in the saddle and it was Nikos. He blew past me like an evil wind, and disappeared into the dust and murk behind.