While he was having this discussion, Nikephoros had all but asked for forgiveness for intruding. “You see, my friend has been annoying me. You probably overheard it,” he said to them, and reluctantly, they accepted him into their group, which wasn’t what he expected. In fact, they had to bring a chair for him, and he thanked them for doing so.

“So, uh, what— who’re you?” questioned one of them, appearing meek from their voice. Nikephoros took a glance at who spoke. They had wavy hair up to their necks and a short beard to complement it. This one also spoke no different to the Komēs.

“My name is Nikephoros,” he introduced himself, being given a nod to acknowledge this. He took another glance at the rest, seeing that they wore richly decorated robes, filled with embroideries of either crested moons and symbols he didn’t understand to floral things he was vaguely familiar with. One of them donned a headdress that made his suspicions rise.

On his right side, the man wore a cap, the bottom made of pure black wook with the top shaped as a wide, round cone of leather and the familiar appalling clothes of a mishmash pattern of black vines within that turquoise tunic. It would be better if it wasn’t on low quality material. Right now, he noticed braided hair that laid in front of them. It was not comforting, but it was interesting to say the least.

“Ioannes,” said the meek one. They continued on with saying “This is Leo,” they continued, talking about the one beside themselves. “That is Georgios on your left and on  your right is a man with the same name as you.”

Nikephoros took in a breath. He muttered under his breath, whilst eyeing each one he calls, “Ioannes, Leo, Georgios and Nikephoros.” He rose up as he said “I think I got your name.” 

The Komēs saw the dagger on Georgios, making a mental note of it at the back of his head. Nikephoros cleared his throat and told them “Call me Tornikes, so that we won’t be confused on who’s who.”

Gradually, while Cyril was making small talk with the tavernkeeper, he was telling his own stories, most of them embarrassing like how he had to crawl on cow manure to catch the thief that got his mother’s necklace. There were even moments where he cried about his job being stressful, especially when the employer would breath down on your neck.

Cyril heard that. He made it so that he would, but they sympathised with him. “Did I ever tell you how I sold a broken oud?” Georgios stated, dragging back Tornikes to the discussion, one arm lying on the top of their chair.

“An oud?” The Komēs leaned on the table, curious about this odd tale.

“Yeah.” Georgios grinned, finally having . “So, I was just throwing out what shit I had at home, selling it alongside woodwork that I made meself.” They crossed their legs as they continued with “Then I found an old instrument, probably a decade old, I don’t remember. Of course, I tried to play it after I cleaned it.”

“You clean?” the group’s Nikephoros teased.

“It was just that one time!” Georgios whined, saying after to Tornikes “Don’t mind him.” The Komēs chuckled softly, being another bystander alongside Ioannes and Leo. 

Speaking of Leo… Nikephoros listened to Georgios rant as he observed the evidently drunk one of them four. “... And I found out that there was a problem with it, even though it looked fine.”

“What was it?” Tornikes asked.

“I tried to play it, yeah?”

Leo retorted with a “Uhuh.”

“Nathin played on it. Couldn’t hear a little tune at all, just a mess. I tried to go and use the other tunes, ya know? Nah. Didn’t work. Was still silent as fuck. So, the only thing I had ta do was just sell it. Might as well. But the next day?” 

Georgios made a ‘thwoop’ sound, saying “Sold by some gullible fuck who wanted it because it looked ‘fun’, he said. I mean, I did make it look nice, but oh dear was he that stupid. Didn’t even know it couldn’t work at all!” He gave a boastful grin as he said “Got twenty billon outta that one.”

Tornikes laughed. Not too loud, but he still laughed. He continued to listen on to these people, though he was still cautious.

For now, the only thing he knew about them was too surface level. Leo was a drunk man. Even though he was the one who invited him, it appears that this one was a light drinker and spoke gibberish after two more drinks. 

There were even some words that were said, so he paid no mind to this man. Ioannes was an avid listener as well, sometimes butting in but just a silent lad.

This other Nikephoros though… He isn’t sure what to think about him. He banters and talks nonsense and simple things such as losing a love life. Yet, even with that normality, the Komēs felt as if he’s being watched as if he was prey. Not only him, he knows that.

He raised himself slowly, telling them “I have to say that  I have overstayed my welcome.” There was nothing significant. Unless he was forgetting something… “Why were you here again?”

“Celebrating his new job,” Ioannes murmured, pointing to his friend Nikephoros, who only nodded.

“Well, congratulations,” he said, grabbing his pouch and giving about 2 hyperpyron to the group and patting the man with the same name on the shoulder. “For compensation and at least one or two more drinks for each of you.” 

“How generous of you,” Nikephoros breathed out, shaking. He bit his lip, probably because of being given something higher than his pay. Tornikes gave an amused huff to that thought.

“I hope you come back, sir,” Ioannes said to him.

“Perhaps,” Tornikes laughed. “Farewell then,” he said, going towards Cyril who was still talking who knows what. He tapped him on the shoulder, telling him “Time to go. I don’t wish to stay up so late, I need some sleep.”

Cyril took a glance at the tavernkeeper and the Komēs. Then, outside the frame of the window, he saw nothing more than the twinkling twilight, a hazy dark blue sky and the moon up high. “We did take long, I guess.” 

He stood up, groaning as he said “Oh Theos, my legs…” With a little stretch, he shimmied over to the Komēs. “Good night, Dauidios.”

“Good night, kyrie.”

Nikephoros came up to the doux, holding his shoulder and whispering to his ear “You became close?”

“Eh, not really,” Cyril whispered back. “Although it would be good to have informants like him. Or make a spy network, at the very least.” As they were walking back to the entrance, the doux asked “How about them, anything of interest other than my slander?”

“Not much, but I may have attained potentially good friends if you tire me.” Releasing Cyril from his loose grasp, he told him “They may have Turkish accents, but what can you do to those who came back to the fold, eh?”

“Ah, so that’s why their inflections feel off,” the doux said. “Also, it’s been a few decades.”

“Still recent,” Tornikes argued. “Now, as I’ve paid for the preparations,” he started. “I want for you to find us a place to sleep in. Preferably in an insula.”

Shaking his head, Cyril said “And you tell me I have a rich palate. No, we’re going to the manor of the katepanos here.”

“Why don’t you call me that as well?” the Komēs asked him.

Cyril hummed, scratching his beard. “Because I joke about how your works have more ceremonial feel with how old fashioned you are.”

“You’re torturing me,” he said, which made Cyril laugh hard. “I did what you wished of me and this is how I’m treated? You, oh dear doux, are insufferable.” As they were in the door, Nikephoros reminded him “Don’t be an arse the moment we go there.”

“I won’t, I won’t.” Cyril added at the end, “But I will torment you still.”

“Gah!” Nikephoros raised his arms, exasperated. “Why are you always—”

He saw in the corner of his eyes that cone hat, and those clothes he had acquainted with. And near that cloth was the shining blade. He took a step and pushed the doux so stiffly. 

He gasped. 

“NIKEPHOROS!”

He was stabbed. Oh, Kyrie, he was stabbed on the back, and all he saw after was Cyril tripping lightly, and the doux only noticed why when he heard the similar name of his friend. 

Georgios was the one who yelled. Cyril caught Tornikes who had lost his balance. 

Cyril saw the man named Nikephoros trying to leave through the window but he was immediately pinned by Ioannes and Leo. 

“You rotten bastard, son of a daemon’s whore, we were celebrating and you do this?!” Leo cried out, panic in his eyes. “Where has your shame gone?! You stabbed Tornikes, even when he gave you riches!”

The doux eyed at Dauidios and Georgios. “Call for a physician,” he said. “Now!”

Silent pants came to Nikephoros. “I can still walk, Cyril,” he breathed out. There was one good outcome from this mess. He wasn’t stabbed in the vital organs as the dagger itself was short, thankfully.

Cyril held the handle of the blade, asking “Do I—” 

“No!” That ends that discussion, the hand of Cyril shying away from the blade. Tornikes glared at Georgios and said to him “Carry me to the hospital.” Georgios only nodded, putting his arm against Tornike’s shoulder.

“Deal with this, doux.” When the man carrying him heard the title, he felt as if he was doomed. Cyril nodded to his request before seeing him off.

Back to where the perpetrator was, it seems that Leo was being held back by Ioannes. “Brother, hold yourself! You’ve already beaten him to a pulp!”

The tavernkeeper said “I will take care of him,” dragging Nikephoros’ unconscious body.

“I better come with,” Cyril said after, looking back at the distraught men that left. This day will be remembered, that’s for sure. “I need to call the guards, keep him in a secure and isolated place.”

When they found an abandoned household, Nikephoros was put there. Dauidios stayed for watch while Cyril ran laps to find watchtowers filled with excess men, or at least guards who had left their posts.

It wasn’t too soon before he gathered them, mainly asking the favour of “Take the man from that house to the cells. At the crack of dawn, find me at the hospital, I need to interrogate that rat covered in filth.”

They followed him, some of them grunting and murmuring curses that their breaks seemed to end so quickly. Only a handful came with him, and all went to the abandoned house. They saw the bruised and beaten Nikephoros on the floor, Dauidios sitting on a chair.

“Thank you for your services,” he told the tavernkeeper. “Go close your establishment before they fine you.” He took a glimpse at the men behind him, pointing and ordering them to take the body and go silently. “One last thing before you go back to your post,” he said to the guards that stayed with.

“Write to a kritēs tomorrow,” he ordered the guards. “And keep him near the hospital. I need to keep an eye on him.” Cyril went to the hospital after they left, hands behind his back and head hung low. The last quarter of this day was too much for the doux. How much of a mess it was.

The moment he entered the room of Nikephoros Tornikes, the blade on his back wasn’t pulled off yet. Cyril commented on it, saying “You sure you’re alright?” Men with white robes entered, possibly the physicians that the Komēs needed.

“That man tried to kill me.” Nikephoros wheezed out. “Of course I’m not fine,” he said before hissing the moment the blade was pulled gently by the physician that came by and stitched immediately after wiping away the blood. ‘Kyrie, eleison,’ he prayed. ‘Give me relief from the pain that has been delivered to me.’

“You know,” Cyril started, fiddling with his fingers. “Perhaps it’s because he became too drunk that he had lost his reasons, eh? Didn’t think the laws would be right on something like this, did you?” Shrugging, he added “Though that drink made me more sober with how shitty it tasted.”

Nikephoros rolled his eyes. “At least we have a lead.”