Destiny's shield

Chapter 35

The Euphrates

Autumn, 531 A.D.

"So where's your flank attack?" demanded Maurice. "You remember-the one you predicted was going to happen that very night. About a week ago."

Belisarius shrugged. Reclining comfortably against the crude rock wall of one of the artillery towers on the dam, he returned Maurice's glower with a look of complacence.

"I forgot about the negotiations," he explained.

"What negotiations?"

Belisarius stuck his thumb over his shoulder, pointing southwest.

"The ones that Ormazd has been having with the Malwa, these past few days." He reached down and brought a goblet to his lips, sipping from its contents.

Maurice eyed the goblet with disfavor.

"How can you drink that stuff? You're starting to go native on me, I can tell. A Roman-sure as hell a Thracian-should be drinking wine, not that-that-that Persian-"

Belisarius smiled crookedly. "I find fresh water flavored with lemon and pomegranate juice to be quite refreshing, Maurice. I thank Baresmanas for introducing me to it."

He levered himself into an upright position. "Besides," he added, "if I drank wine all day-day after day, stuck on this misbegotten dam-I'd be a complete sot by now."

"Anastasius and Valentinian drink wine," came the immediate riposte. "Haven't noticed them stumbling about."

Belisarius cast a cold eye on his two bodyguards, not four yards away. Like Belisarius, Anastasius and Valentinian were lounging in the shade provided by the artillery tower.

"With his body weight," growled the general, "Anastasius could drink a tun of wine a day and never notice." Anastasius, hearing, looked down at his immense frame with philosophical serenity. "And as for Valentinian-ha! The man not only looks like a weasel, he can eat and drink like one, too." Valen-tinian, hearing, looked down at his whipcord body with his own version of philosophical serenity. Which, more than anything, resembled a weasel after gorging itself in a chickencoop.

Suddenly, Belisarius thrust himself to his feet. The motion was pointless, really. It simply expressed the general's frustration at the past week of immobility. Stuck on a dam with his army while they fought it out, day after day, with an endless series of Malwa probes and attacks.

For all practical purposes, the battle had become a siege. Belisarius was a master of siegecraft-whether on offense or defense-but it was a type of warfare that he personally detested. His temperament led him to favor maneuver rather than simple mayhem.

He had not even had the-so to speak-relief of personal combat. On the first day after joining his army on the dam itself, Belisarius had started to participate directly in repelling one of the Malwa attacks. Even before Anastasius and Valentinian had corraled him and dragged him away, the Syrian soldiers manning that section of the wall had fiercely driven him off. Liberius and Maurice, riding up with their cataphracts to bolster the Syrians, had even cursed him for a damned fool.

The general's cold and calculating brain recognized the phenomenon, of course, and took satisfaction in it. Only commanders who were genuinely treasured by an army had their personal safety so jealously guarded by their own soldiers. But the man inside the general had chafed, and cursed, and stormed, and railed.

The general bridled the man. And so, for a week, Belisarius had reconciled himself to the inevitable. He had never again attempted to directly participate in the fight at the wall, but he had spent each and every day riding up and down the Roman line of fortifications. Encouraging his soldiers, consulting with his officers, organizing the logistics, and-especially-spending time with the wounded.

Valentinian and Anastasius had grumbled, Aide had chafed-rockets! very dangerous! — but Belisarius had been adamant. His soldiers, he knew, might take conscious satisfaction in the knowledge that their commander was out of the direct fray. But they would-at a much, much deeper human level-take heart and courage from his immediate presence.

In that, he had been proven right. As the week wore on, his army's battle cry underwent a transformation.

Rome! Rome! it had been, in the first two days.

By the third day, as he rode up and down the fortifications, his own name had been cheered. That was still true, even more so, a week after the battle started. But his name was no longer being used as a simple cheer. It had become a taunt of defiance hurled at the enemy. The entire Roman army using that single word to let the Malwa know:

You sorry bastards are fucked. Fucked.

Belisarius! Belisarius!

Belisarius drained his goblet and set it down on the wall with enough force to crack the crude pottery.

He ignored the sound, swiveling his head to the west.

His eyes glared. It being late afternoon, the sun promptly glared back. He raised a hand to shield his face.

"Come on, Ormazd," he growled. "Make up your mind. Not even a God-be-damned Aryan prince should need a week to decide on treason."

Maurice turned his own head to follow Belisarius' gaze.

"You think that's what's been going on?"

"Count on it, Maurice," said Belisarius softly. "I can guarantee you that every night, for the past week, Malwa emissaries have been shuttling back and forth between Ormazd's pavilion and-"

For a moment, he began to turn his head to the south. Squinting fiercely, as if by sheer forth of will he could peer into the great pavilion which the Malwa had erected on the left bank of the Euphrates, well over a mile away. The pavilion where, he was certain, Link exercised its demonic command.

Maurice grunted sourly. "Maybe you're right. I sure as hell hope so. If this damned siege goes on much longer, we'll-ah." He made a vague gesture with his hand, as if brushing dung off his tunic.

Belisarius said nothing. He knew Maurice was not worried that the Malwa could take the dam by frontal assault. Nor was the chiliarch really concerned that the Malwa could wear out the Romans. The steady stream of barges coming down from Callinicum kept the defenders better supplied than the attackers. The Romans could withstand this kind of semi-siege almost indefinitely.

But-it was wearing. Wearing on the body, wearing on the nerves. Since the ferocious Malwa assaults of the first day and night, which they had suspended in favor of constant probes and quick pinprick attacks, casualties had been relatively light. But "light" casualties are still casualties. Men you know, dead, crippled, wounded. Day after day, with no end in sight.

"I hope you're right," he repeated. Sourly.

Belisarius decided a change of subject was in order. "Agathius is going to live," he announced. "I'm quite confident of it, now. I saw him just yesterday."

Maurice glanced upriver, at the ambulance barges moored just beyond range of the Malwa rockets. "Glad to hear it. I thought sure-" He lapsed into another little grunt. Not sour, this one. The inarticulate sound combined admiration with disbelief.

"Never thought he'd make it," he admitted. "Especially after he refused to go to Callinicum."

Belisarius nodded. Most of the Roman casualties, after triage, had been shipped back to Callinicum. But Agathius had flat refused-had even threatened violence when Belisarius tried to insist. So, he had stayed-as had his young wife. Sudaba had been just as stubborn toward Agathius' demands that she leave as he had been toward Belisarius. Including the threats of violence.

In truth, Belisarius was grateful. Cyril had succeeded to the command of the Constantinople troops, and had done very well in the post. But Agathius' stance had done wonders for the army's morale, and by no means simply among the Greeks. For the past week, a steady stream of soldiers-Thracians, Syrians, Illyrians and Arabs as much as Greeks-had visited the maimed officer on his barge. Agathius was very weak from tremendous loss of blood, and in great pain, what with one leg amputated at the knee and the other at the ankle. But the man had borne it all with a stoicism which would have shamed Marcus Aurelius, and had never failed to take the occasion to reinforce his visitors' determination to resist the Malwa.

A quiet thought came from Aide:

"Think where man's glory most begins and ends

And say my glory was I had such friends."

"Yes," whispered Belisarius. "Yes."

It's from a poet whose name will be Yeats. Many centuries from now.

Belisarius took a deep breath.

Let us give mankind those centuries, then. And all the millions of centuries which will come after.