Belisarius II-Storm at Noontide

by Eric Flint

  Ousanas' laugh cut him off. The laugh, and the huge grin which followed. "Of course she doesn't think that, Wahsi!"

  The tall hunter beamed down at the short Roman woman. "She's not going to appeal to their 'reason,' man. Just their greed."

  "Well spoken," murmured Antonina. She smiled demurely at Wahsi. "I'm a genius, remember?"

  * * *

  It took hours, of course. Long into the night, negotiating with a small horde of Arab chieftains and subchieftains. Each little dhow had its own independent captain, and each of them had an opinion of his own. Four or five opinions, as often as not.

  "We cannot board those great Malwa beasts," snarled one of the village-notables-turned-pirate-captain. He spoke slowly, and emphatically, so that Antonina could follow him. Her command of Arabic was only middling. "The one time we tried—" He threw up his hands. "Butchered! Butchered! Only two ships came back."

  "Butchered, butchered," rose the murmur from the crowd. The pavilion which Antonina had ordered erected on the beach was packed with Arab chieftains. All of them joined in the protest, like a Greek chorus.

  Antonina responded with a grin, worthy of a bandit.

  "That was my husband's ship, I imagine."

  The statement brought instant silence. Seventeen pairs of beady eyes were examining her, like ferrets studying a hen. Except this hen had just announced that she was mated to a roc.

  Antonina nodded toward Ousanas. The hunter was squatting out of the way, in a corner of the tent. He had been there since the Arabs first entered. After a glance, none of them had paid him any attention. The Roman woman's slave, obviously; beneath their notice.

  Ousanas grinned and rose lazily. The tall hunter reached behind him and drew forth his great stabbing spear. Then, hefting it easily, he began rattling off some quick sentences in fluent Arabic. Antonina could only follow some of it, but the gist was not hard to grasp.

  Simple concepts, really. Yeah, that's right, you mangy fucks. I was there too. (Here, two of the chieftains hissed and tried to edge their way back into the crowd. No translation was needed—they remembered Ousanas, clearly enough.) It was almost funny the way you pitiful amateur pirates scuttled over the sides—the few of you who still could, that is, after we gutted and beheaded and disemboweled and maimed and mangled and slaughtered—-

  And so on, and so forth. Fortunately, Ousanas concluded on a happier note.

  So let's not hear any crap about what can and can't be done. You couldn't do it, for sure. But nobody's asking you to. We'll do the serious work. All you've got to do is haul away the spoils.

  The fishermen/bandits had taken no offense at Ousanas' grisly taunts. But they were deeply offended by his last statement.

  Again, Antonina had no difficulty interpreting the gist of their hot-tempered remarks.

  What? Do we look like fools? Why would you do all the dangerous work and let us take the loot? Snort, snort. Do you take us for idiots? Lies, lies.

  Antonina decided to interject the voice of sweet, feminine reason.

  "Nobody said you'd get all the loot, you stupid oafs. Do we look like fools, ourselves?" She pointed imperiously at the fleet of Ethiopian warships moored in the bay. The ships were quite visible in the moonlight, since the tent flaps had been pulled aside to allow the cooling breeze to enter.

  "Those, you ignorant dolts, are what are called warships." Snort, snort. "As different from your pitiful canoes as a lion from a sheep." Sneer, sneer. "You do know what a sheep is, don't you? You should. You've fucked them often enough, since you're too ugly to seduce a woman and too clumsy to catch one."

  The Arabs laughed uproariously. Then, settling comfortably on their haunches, they readied for some serious bargaining. Clearly, the Roman was a woman they could do business with. A marvelous command of insult, even if her words were stumbling and prosaic. But allowances had to be made. Arabic was not her native tongue, after all.

  Antonina clapped her hands, like a schoolteacher commanding the attention of stupid and unruly students. The Arabs grinned.

  "The Axumite warships are quite capable of bringing down the Malwa vessels. The problem is—they're fighting ships. Not much room, with all the soldiers, to carry off loot." Her next words, Antonina spoke very slowly, so that imbeciles might be able to follow her simple reasoning.

  "We . . . will . . . take . . . what . . . we . . . can. You . . . get . . . the . . . rest. Do . . . you . . . understand?"

  Suspicion came back, in full force.

  Why would you offer us charity? Are we fools? A trap! A trap! One of them began warning his fellows that the treacherous Romans and Ethiopians were trying to steal their dhows, but he was silenced by scowls. Insulting, that was, to their intelligence. The Arabs knew perfectly well the Ethiopians were about as interested in patched-together dhows as they were in camel dung. Still—

  Why?

  "We are at war with Malwa," was Antonina's reply. "We will strike their convoy, but we are not seeking loot as such. After we are done, we will sail east, to storm their fortress at Barbaricum. Burn it to the ground. In war, you must move quickly. We will not have time to plunder the entire convoy and make sure it is completely destroyed. We simply cripple it, take what we can—quickly—and be on our way. You will finish them off."

  She leaned back, gazing on them serenely. Like a schoolteacher, satisfied that she had—finally—hammered home the simple lesson. "With your help, we strike the hardest blow at Malwa. With our help, you get much plunder. That's the bargain."

  It took two more hours. But it was not really difficult. Most of the time was spent haggling over the peripheral details.

  The Arabs would stay out of sight of land, like the Ethiopians. They would obey the orders of the flotilla commander. (Here, Antonina pointed to Ousanas; the hunter began honing his spear.) They would not wander off if they spotted a lone merchant ship. And so on, and so forth.

  Not difficult. Those men knew a good bargain when they saw one. Even if they weren't geniuses.

  Chapter 27

  THE TIGRIS

  Autumn, 532 a.d.

  "You seem unhappy, Sanga," commented Damodara. "Why is that?"

  The Malwa lord had drawn up his horse next to the Rajput king, on a slope of the foothills. Damodara gestured at the floodplain below them. A large river was clearly visible, a few miles in the distance, wending its slow way to the sea. "I should think you'd be delighted at the sight of the Tigris. Finally."

  Rana Sanga rubbed the scar on his left cheek. Then, realizing what he was doing, drew away the hand. He was a king of Rajputana. Battle scars should be ignored with dignity.

  Still frowning, Sanga twisted in his saddle and stared back at the mountains. The peaks of the Zagros front range loomed behind them, like unhappy giants. They, too, seemed creased with worry.

  "Something's wrong," he muttered. Sanga brought his gaze back, staring down at the slope before them. The rolling ground was sprinkled with Rajput cavalrymen. Each cavalry platoon was accompanied by a Pathan tracker, but the presence of the trackers was redundant. The huge trail left by the Roman army would have been obvious—quite literally—to a blind man. Ten thousand horses, and as many pack mules, tear up soil like a Titan's plow.

  "Why do you say that?" asked Damodara. "Are you still concerned that our advance scouts haven't made contact with Belisarius?" The Malwa lord shrugged. "I don't find that odd. Once Belisarius made the decision to retreat into Mesopotamia, he had every reason to move as quickly as possible. We, on the other hand, have been moving cautiously and slowly. He might have been laying an ambush."

  Damodara pointed to the floodplain, sweeping his hand in a wide arc. "There's no way to set an ambush there, Rana Sanga. That land is as flat as a board. You can see for miles."

  The Malwa commander eased back in his saddle. "We don't know where he is, that is true. Ctesiphon. More likely Peroz-Shapur. Somewhere else, perhaps. But that he is in the floodplain cannot be doubted. You could hardly ask for a clearer trail."
<
br />   Sanga's lips twisted. "No, you couldn't. And that's exactly what bothers me." Again, he twisted in the saddle, staring back at the mountains. "In my experience, Lord Damodara, Belisarius is most to be feared when he seems most obvious."

  Damodara felt a moment's irritation at Sanga's stubborn gloom, but he squelched it. He had learned not to dismiss Sanga's presentiments. The Rajput king, for all his aristocratic trappings, had the combat instincts of a wild animal. The man was as fearless as a tiger, but without a tiger's assumption of supremacy.

  Damodara almost laughed at the image which came to him. A mouse the size of a tiger, with a tiger's fangs and claws, wearing Sanga's frowning face. Furious worry; fretting courage.

  Sanga was still staring at the mountains. "I cannot help remembering," he said slowly, "another trail left by Belisarius." He jerked his head slightly, motioning to the floodplain below. "Just as obvious as that one."

  He settled himself firmly in the saddle. Then, turning to Damodara, he said: "I would like your permission to retrace our steps. I would need several of my Pathan trackers and my own clansmen. You can spare five hundred cavalrymen for two weeks."

  For the first time, a little smile came to Sanga's face. "For what it's worth, I don't think you need fear an ambush." The smile vanished. "I have a feeling that Belisarius is hunting larger game than us."

  Frowning with puzzlement, Damodara cocked his head southward. "The only bigger game is Great Lady Holi's army." The Malwa lord, in Sanga's presence, did not bother with the fiction that Great Lady Holi was simply accompanying the Malwa Empire's main force in Mesopotamia. Sanga knew as well as Damodara that "Great Lady Holi" was a human shell. Within the exterior of an old woman rested the divine creature from the future named Link. Link, and Link alone, commanded that huge army.

  "There are more than a hundred and fifty thousand men in that army, Rana Sanga," protested Damodara. "Even now that they have left the fortifications of Charax, and are marching north along the Euphrates, they can have nothing to fear from Belisarius. Military genius or not, the man's army is simply too small to threaten them."

  Sanga shrugged. "I do not claim to have any answers, Lord Damodara. But I am almost certain that that"—he pointed to the trail left by the Roman army—"is a knife-cut on a horse's hoof."

  Damodara did not understand the last remark, but he did not press Sanga for an explanation. Nor did he withhold his permission. Why should he? On the open plain, Belisarius posed no real threat to his army either. He could afford, for two weeks, to lose the services of Rana Sanga and five hundred Rajput cavalrymen.

  "Very well," he said. Damodara paused, rubbing his lower back. "Probably just as well. The army is weary. While you're gone, we'll make camp by the Tigris. After six months of campaigning, the soldiers could use some rest."

  Chapter 28

  THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ

  Autumn, 532 a.d.

  Wahsi had been skeptical, at first. But, by the time the fleet reached the Strait of Hormuz, even he was satisfied that the Arabs would not give away the secret.

  "Not until they discover they've been tricked, at least," he said to Antonina. The Dakuen commander pressed his shoulders against the mainmast, rubbing them back and forth to relieve an itch. The feline pleasure he seemed to take in the act matched poorly with the unhappy scowl on his face.

  Wahsi had been gloomy since the start of the expedition. Like Maurice, Wahsi viewed "clever plans" with a jaundiced eye—especially plans which depended on timing and secrecy. Synchronization is a myth; stones babble; and nothing ever works the way it should. Those, for Wahsi as much as Maurice, were the Trinity.

  "Doesn't really matter, I suppose," he grumbled sourly. "I'm sure half the crowd who watched us sail from Adulis were Malwa agents, anyway."

  "Please, Wahsi!" protested Antonina. Smiling: "You exaggerate. Not more than a third of the crowd, at the most."

  If anything, Wahsi's scowl deepened. Sighing, Antonina decided to retread old ground.

  "Wahsi, they saw us sail north. Carrying the Theodoran Cohort back to Egypt."

  "They won't believe—"

  "Of course they won't!" snapped Antonina. "That's why I had my Syrians babble cheerfully in the markets that we had a secret plan to disembark at Aila and march into Mesopotamia. The Malwa will be looking for the truth beneath the illusion, and that should satisfy them. Especially when they see Ashot and the cataphracts—and the whole Cohort except for the gunners—unload from the ships and march inland." She giggled. "Koutina looked perfect, too, wearing that obscene replica of my obscene cuirass."

  Wahsi was still scowling. Antonina sighed again.

  Exasperated, now: "Do you really think Malwa spies in Aila are going to match numbers with Malwa spies at the other end of the Red Sea in order to make sure they have the same count of the ships in that huge fleet? Do you really think anyone saw twelve ships come about, after nightfall, and sail back? Do you really think Malwa agents can see in the dark? We were out of sight of land when we passed Adulis, and we stayed out of sight until we reached the Hadrawmat." She concluded firmly: "The only ones who spotted us were the Arab fishermen of the coast, and we've got them with us now."

  Wahsi had no argument. But his expression was still mulish.

  Ousanas, lounging against the rail nearby, had been following the conversation. When he spoke, his own face was more serious than normal.

  "Still, Antonina, Wahsi raises a good point." Ousanas gestured with his head toward the flotilla of Arab dhows trailing the Ethiopian warships. "What will they do, once they discover they've been swindled?"

  Antonina shrugged. "They'll be very unhappy with me, I imagine. So what? They're hardly likely to attack us. Those flea-bitten bandits have no more stomach for taking on Ethiopian warships than Malwa ones."

  Wahsi stopped rubbing his shoulders against the mast and stood erect. Hands planted on hips, he twisted and glared at the Arab dhows.

  "I'll tell you what they'll do, Antonina. They'll be as grouchy as so many camels. And they'll be looking to get something out of all those windless days pulling on the oars. It won't happen until we're almost at Charax. The greedy bastards will keep hoping, till the last minute, that the Malwa convoy you promised them is just over the horizon. But by the time they finally realize that there is no Malwa convoy and never was, they'll also understand what you're really planning to do. They'll land and go looking for the first Malwa, to sell the information."

  He turned back to Antonina, cocking his head. "Am I not right?" he demanded.

  She responded with a cheerful grin "Yes, yes. And then what?"

  Her question produced a moment's silence. Suddenly, Ousanas whooped a laugh.

  "Of course! Then—" He whooped again. "Then, a bunch of dirt-poor Arabs, for whom haggling is both art and sport, spend twenty-eight years bargaining with a snotty Malwa official over the price. Before they tell the Malwa anything. By which time—" He beamed on Antonina approvingly. "It's all over, one way or the other."

  He transferred the beaming grin to Wahsi. "The woman's a genius. I said it before; I say it again."

  Even Wahsi managed a smile. "She's tricky, I give you that." Grudgingly: "Maybe. Maybe it'll work."

  Then, back to scowling: "I hate clever tactics." For a moment, his eyes caressed the sight of his stabbing spear, propped against the rail nearby. He sighed, scratching his scalp. "You know what I wish? I wish—"

  There was a sudden cry from the lookout perched in the bow. A stream of words followed, by way of explication. An instant later, Wahsi was capering about, cackling with glee.

  Ousanas leapt onto the port rail, holding himself by a stay. Once he verified the lookout's claim with his own eyes, his grin erupted.

  "Thy wish is granted, commander of the Dakuen!" he shouted gaily.

  Even if she had been standing on the rail, Antonina would have been too short to see. "Is it really—?"

  "Indeed so! Take heart, Antonina. Your name will not be cursed, in villages of the Ha
drawmat, for a trickster and a cheat." Ousanas pointed dramatically at the northern horizon. "The Malwa convoy has arrived—just as you promised!"

  Chapter 29

  It was blind luck, of course. The westbound monsoon season, which would bring hordes of ships bearing supplies to the Malwa in Charax, would not begin for several weeks. At this time of the year, with the eastbound monsoon breathing its last, Antonina had not expected to encounter any ships sailing back to India.

  It was even bad luck, in some ways. On balance, Antonina would have preferred to encounter no Malwa ships at all on her way into Charax. There was always the danger that her own flotilla would be too badly mauled in a sea battle to carry out her task. Had the Arab dhows not attached themselves to her fleet, she would have been tempted to let the Malwa convoy pass unmolested.

  But when she muttered her misgivings to Wahsi, the Dakuen commander shook his head.

  "That'd be pointless, Antonina. Those Malwa spotted us as soon as we spotted them. Sooner, probably, if they're keeping lookouts on those huge masts. They would have sent a warning back to Charax, on one of the galleys. We'd have had to attack them in any event."

  The Malwa convoy was completely in sight, now. The convoy had been sailing from west to east, before the wind. The Axumite fleet, approaching from the south with the wind on the beam, was intercepting them at a ninety-degree angle.

  Wahsi studied the enemy ships. The hulls of the great cargo vessels had emerged over the horizon, and they could see the sails of the two smaller galleys which were serving the convoy as an escort. The galleys were already furling their sails and unlimbering their oars, in preparation for battle.

  "Arrogant shits," he snarled. "Two galleys? For a convoy that size?" His Axumite amour propre was deeply offended.

  Ousanas chuckled. "They probably never expected to face Ethiopian warships, Wahsi. Not this year, at least." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the Arab ships. The dhows were already falling back and spreading out. The Arabs intended to stay well clear of the fighting, but be ready to swoop in for the spoils. "And two galleys are more than enough, to protect against that rabble. We beat off a fleet just as big with a single unguarded cargo vessel."