The tide of victory

Chapter 16

A few minutes later, the first flare went off. Her face pressed against one of the viewing slits in the shield, Antonina scanned the dark sea looking for any sign of the approaching Malwa suicide ship.

She didn't have very long to spot anything. When the flare erupted, about three hundred feet above the sea, it cast a very satisfactory light over a large area. But the parachute failed to deploy, and the spent rocket plunged into the water after providing only a short moment of illumination.

"Damn the thing!" She turned her head and glared at Eusebius. "What went wrong?"

Eusebius didn't seem greatly perturbed. "What usually happens." He straightened up from his own viewing slit and shrugged. "Those flare rockets are pretty crude, Antonina. Not much more sophisticated, except for the venturi, than the simplest Malwa rockets. Well over half the time, the propellant fires too unevenly-or too hot, or both-and burns through the parachute rigging before the flare goes off."

"Why don't we fix the problem?" she grumbled.

"Not worth it. That'd make for very expensive rockets. The way it is, we can carry plenty of them." He turned his head and bellowed-shrilled, more precisely-an order for another flare to the seamen waiting at the rocket trough just behind the bow shield. They were obviously expecting the order, and the next flare went up seconds later.

"The trick," said Eusebius softly, as he pressed his eyes back to the slit, "is not to try to scan the whole area. I always assume the rocket is going to malfunction, so I always start by scanning the area just ahead. Then, for the next one, the area to my left. Then-"

He broke off. The second flare erupted-and, again, plunged almost immediately into the sea.

Antonina slapped the side of the shield in frustration. "Couldn't see anything!"

Eusebius was already shrilling another order. Then, turned back again to the viewslit. "Nothing in front of us or to the left. Now we'll see what it looks like to starboard."

Antonina held her breath. Then, erupted in more cursing. Louder, this time. The parachute for the third flare had deployed satisfactorily. But the flare itself failed to ignite, and the only light shed was the faint glow of a still-smoldering rocket fuselage as it drifted gently down to the waves.

"Another!" shrilled Eusebius.

But that flare became almost a moot point. Just before Eusebius issued the command, Antonina suddenly saw the enemy vessel. It was well illuminated by the back flash of a rocket volley sent their way by the Malwa. Clearly enough, the three rockets sent up by the Romans had provided the enemy with a target.

"Stupid," muttered Eusebius. "They're still three hundred yards off. They should have waited."

Antonina held her breath. But Eusebius' confidence proved justified. Five of the six rockets fired by the Malwa missed the Roman vessel by a good fifty-yard margin-one of them even exploding in midair almost as soon as it left the enemy ship. The Malwa too, clearly enough, were plagued with malfunctioning missiles.

The last missile caromed off the sea surface and skipped past the Victrix, missing the stern by not more than ten feet.

Antonina turned her head and saw Ousanas pressing himself into the entrance of the bow shield. There wasn't much room, with the three-man crew staffing the fire cannon. The Ethiopian aqabe tsentsen grinned at her.

"Getting hot now," he said. "Much cooler in here, behind these splendid shields."

Ironically, the fourth Roman flare went off perfectly. Looking back through her viewslit, Antonina could see that the Malwa ship was now perfectly illuminated.

"You should get back now also, Antonina," muttered Eusebius. His tone was half-apologetic, but firm for all that. "There's really nothing more for you to do. Everything's clear enough from here on. They're struggling against the wind and the current, and we're sailing right for them. Everything works for us now. They have to use oars, which means they can't fire too many more broadsides without losing way completely. And pretty soon we'll be coming at them bow-on anyway. I doubt they'll be able to fire more than two rockets at a time."

Reluctantly, Antonina backed away from the viewslit and began edging her way to the rear. Between the cramped space and her own voluptuous figure, getting past the two fire-cannon handlers on her side was a bit of a chore.

"Good thing you aren't wearing that obscene breastplate of yours," said Ousanas. "Or those men are crippled. Instead of enflamed with passion."

Antonina burst out laughing. The two cannon men tried to restrain their own laughter, but not with any great success. One of them shook his head ruefully, as he made a last minute adjustment to the complicated machinery of the flamethrower.

Some cool, calculating part of Antonina's mind recognized that their easy humor was a subtle indication of the respect and affection in which she was held by the soldiers and sailors under her command. Whatever resentment they might once have felt, being led by a woman-even if she was the wife of Belisarius-seemed to have vanished over the course of the two years since she had set sail from Constantinople.

And the same part of her mind, as she finally reached the rear of the shelter and squatted next to Ousanas, also finally understood something about her husband. She had often heard Maurice and Belisarius' bodyguards grumble at the general's stubborn insistence on exposing himself to danger. A characteristic which she, also, had always considered nothing more than childishness-even stupidity. But now, examining her own reluctance to leave the viewslit for the relative safety of the rear of the shield, she finally understood. Over the last two years, she too had internalized her own position of power and authority. And found the same profound distaste for ordering other people into danger if she was not prepared to share it herself.

Ousanas seemed to read her thoughts. "It's still stupid," he murmured. "Eusebius is perfectly correct-there's nothing further you can do now."

She stared up at him. Even squatting as they both were, the tall African hunter towered above her.

"You are a truly magnificent man, Ousanas of the lakes," she said softly. "I don't think I've ever told you that. If I weren't in love with Belisarius, I would set my sights on you."

He stared back at her. In another man, the dark eyes would have had a speculative gleam in them. Wondering if her words were a subtle invitation. But Antonina would not have spoken those words to another man. And so the eyes of Ousanas contained nothing but a soft glow of warmth and affection.

"I dare say you'd succeed, too," he chuckled. "You are quite magnificent yourself."

He shook his head, slightly. "But it probably wouldn't work, anyway. I fear with my new-found august status that my eventual marriage will be a thing of state. And I can't really see you as a concubine. A wife or a courtesan, but never a concubine."

"True," she nodded. For a moment, she paused, gauging the sounds of another oncoming Malwa volley. But her now-experienced ear recognized another miss, even before the sailor who had taken her place at the viewslit exclaimed: "Stupid bastards! They're still two hundred yards off. Waste of rockets."

"True," she repeated. Her curiosity was now aroused, and she found a welcome relief in it from the tension of simply waiting for battle to erupt. She cocked her head, smiling.

"But why wouldn't you select a high-placed Roman wife?" she asked. "Not me, of course, but someone else. It would seem a natural choice, given the new realities. I would think-certainly hope-that Axum intends to retain its alliance with Rome even after the Malwa are broken. And I'm quite sure Theodora would be delighted to round up three dozen senators' daughters for you to select from."

She spread her hands, palms up, as if weighing two things in the balance. "Granted that empires and kingdoms are fickle creatures, and not given much to sentiment. But I still can't see where the future holds any serious reason for conflict between Rome and Ethiopia. We'd gotten along well for two centuries, after all, even before the Malwa drove us into close alliance."

"I agree," said Ousanas. The abrupt forcefulness of the statement, Antonina suspected, was a reflection of Ousanas' own tension at being forced to remain idle while others prepared to fight. "But that's part of the reason why I won't. The truth is, Antonina, there's no real reason for closer ties between Rome and Axum. The same distance that keeps us from being enemies, also makes close friendship unnecessary."

Ousanas paused for a moment, staring at the fire cannon in front of him. Something in the deadly shape of the device seemed to concentrate his thoughts. His expression became sternly thoughtful.

"Eon and I have discussed this at length, many times now. And twice-I'm not sure you even know about this-I spent hours with Belisarius, questioning Aide through him."

Antonina hadn't known of those sessions, as it happened, but she wasn't particularly surprised. Ousanas was one of the few people in the world, beyond Belisarius himself, who had "communed" directly with Aide. And so he understood, in a way that almost no one else would, just how encyclopedic was the crystal's knowledge of human history-including the vast centuries and millennia that would have unfolded, had the "new gods" not brought Malwa into existence. Antonina realized that Ousanas, canny as always, would have taken advantage of that opportunity to provide himself with the knowledge he would need as the aqabe tsentsen of Axum.

Translated literally, the term meant "keeper of the fly whisks." But the position was the highest in the Axumite realm, second only to that of the negusa nagast himself. His responsibility, in essence, was to guide the Ethiopian King of Kings in shaping the destiny of his people.

"Africa is the future of Ethiopia, Antonina. Not Rome, or any other realm of the Mediterranean or Asia."

He spread his own hands, palms down, as if cupping the head of a child. "A vast continent, full of riches. Populated only-except for Ethiopia and the Mediterranean coast-with tribes of hunters and farmers. Many of whom, however, are also skilled ironworkers and miners. Organized and shaped by Ethiopian statecraft, there's a great empire there to be built."

Antonina's eyes widened. "I've never pictured you-or Eon-as conquerors. Neither of you seems to have the, ah, temperament-"

"Not bloodthirsty enough?" he demanded, grinning. Then, with a chuckle: "Statecraft, I said."

He shrugged. "I'm quite sure we will have our share of battles with barbarian tribes. But not all that many, truth to tell, and more in the nature of short wars and skirmishes than great campaigns of conquest and slaughter. Keep in mind, Antonina-I am Bantu myself-that Africa is not heavily populated. And there is no great Asian hinterland producing Huns and such to drive the other tribes forward. We expect most of the task to be one for missionaries and traders, not soldiers. Peaceful work, in the main."

He broke off. Another Malwa volley was coming-and would strike home or come close, judging from the sound.

"Two rockets!" shouted the sailor at the viewslit. "One of them-"

An instant later, the shield shook under the impact of a missile. Antonina was a bit startled. Unconsciously, she had been expecting the same deep booming sound which she remembered from her experience in the battle outside Charax's harbor the year before. But the Victrix's bow shield was no primitive, jury-rigged thing of leather stretched over poles. This warship was not a hastily converted galley. The Victrix had been designed from the keel up for this kind of battle, and the shield was a solid thing of timber clad with metal sheathing. It shrugged off the rocket as easily as a warrior's shield might shrug off a pebble thrown by a child.

"Ha!" shrilled Eusebius. "John was right! They need cannons-big ones, too, not piddly field guns-to break through this thing. And they don't have any!"

The sailor at the viewslit next to him shook his head. Antonina couldn't actually see the grin splitting his face, but she had no doubt it was there. "Not on this miserable priest-ship, anyway. Probably be a different story when we come up against the Malwa main fleet."

He turned his head toward Eusebius, showing his profile to Antonina. He was grinning. "But that's for a later day."

The sailor's grin faded. "Captain, I can handle this from here on. We're only a hundred yards off. Better see to the cannon. You're still the only one who can really use it very well."

Eusebius nodded. Watching, Antonina was struck by the little exchange. A different commander might have taken umbrage at such a semi-order coming from a subordinate. But although Eusebius had, more or less, become comfortable in his new role as a ship captain, he still had the basic habits and instincts of an artisan accustomed to working with others.

She didn't think John would have approved, really. But John was gone, and Antonina herself was not much concerned over the matter. She suspected that Eusebius' methods would probably work just as well.

And it was not her business, anyway. She forced her eyes away from Eusebius and looked at Ousanas. "Continue," she said. She spoke the word so forcefully that she was reminded, again, of her own tension.

"Not much else to say, Antonina. Axum has slowly been extending its rule to the south anyway, over the past two centuries. But heretofore the process was basically unplanned and uncoordinated. Most of our attention was focused on the Red Sea and southern Arabia. We will retain those, of course. But we will seek no further expansion in that direction. The Arab farmers and townsmen and merchants of Yemen and the Hijaz are content enough with our rule. But if we press further, we would simply embroil ourselves in endless conflicts with the bedouin of the interior-not to mention the certainty of an eventual clash with Persia. No point to any of it!"

He broke off. Another rocket volley. Both rockets, this time, struck the shield. And both were deflected just as easily and harmlessly.

"So after the war with Malwa," Ousanas resumed, "we will concentrate on the African interior-and do it properly. We will start by sending an expedition, led by myself, to incorporate the land between the great lakes which is my own homeland. That is the first step-along with seizing and settling the east African coast. At least as far south as the Pangani river. We will also seize the island of Zanzibar and build a fortress there. And we will found a new city on the coast, which will be destined to become a great seaport."

He smiled whimsically. "There are definite advantages, you understand, to Aide's knowledge of the future. Eon has even decreed that we will give that city the name it would have had, centuries from now. Mombasa."

He paused for a moment, his eyes becoming slightly unfocused. "The thing is, Eon and I are also thinking far into the future. We will not live to see it, of course-neither us nor our great-grandchildren-but we think our plans will eventually produce a very different Africa than the one which existed in the old future. In that future, Axum became isolated very soon by the Moslem conquests. And so, instead of being the conduit into Africa for that Mediterranean civilization of which we are becoming a part, Ethiopia retreated into the highlands. And there it remained, century after century, still more or less intact-but playing no further role in the history of the world or even Africa."

He cocked his head, gauging the sounds of the next Malwa volley. They were very close now, and both rockets missed entirely. Clearly enough, the priests manning the rocket troughs were getting rattled.

Eusebius and one of the sailors were now wrestling with the fire cannon's barrel, swiveling it to starboard. Unlike the rigid, single-piece construction of a normal cannon, the flamethrower was designed in such a way that the barrel could be positioned in any one of five locations, covering an arc of ninety degrees, without moving the main body of the device. One of the other sailors was removing the shield covering the rearmost firing slit on the starboard side. Eusebius, following Antonina's earlier terse instructions, intended to sail the Victrix right down the length of the Malwa galley, bathing it in hellfire as it passed. Hopefully, by the time the ship exploded, the Victrix would have sailed past far enough to avoid any catastrophic damage. Unless-

Again, Ousanas seemed to read Antonina's thoughts. "Let's hope one of those damned priests doesn't decide to blow the ship while we're alongside," he muttered. Then, a bit more brightly: "But probably not, since we're only one ship-and they'll have no way of knowing you are aboard."

"Or you," she retorted. "You are Axum's aqabe tsentsen. A Mahaveda might decide that was a satisfactory prize to take to hell with him."

Ousanas chuckled. "In the dark of night? Just another heathen black savage, that's all." He took Antonina's hand in his own and squeezed it. Then, gently, turned her wrist over and opened his palm. Her small hand, dusky-Egyptian though it was, was pale across the breadth of his own hand, black with African color.

"It means little to us, in our day," he mused, staring down at the contrast. "But a day will come-would have, at least-when that will not be so. A day when milk-white north Europeans, barbarians no longer but in some ways even more barbarous, will enslave Africans and claim that the difference in race is justification enough. A claim which they will be able to make because, for over a millennium, Africa remained isolated from world civilization."

He shook his head, smiling slightly. "Isolation is a bad thing, for a people as much as a person. So Eon and I, as best we can, will see to it that it never happens. Ethiopia's new destiny is to mother a different Africa. And I-"

His smile spread into a grin. "I am destined, I fear, to marry some half-savage creature who is even now squatting by the edge of one of the great lakes. But whose father can claim to be the 'great chief' of the land." He sighed. "Hopefully, I will be able to convince the creature to learn how to read. Or, at least, not to use my books for kindling."

"Get ready!" shrilled Eusebius. One of the sailors began frenziedly working the lever which filled the fire cannon's chamber. From beyond the shield, Antonina could hear the indistinct shrieks of Mahaveda priests shouting their own orders. She thought-she hoped-to detect confusion in those sounds.

But, for the moment, she blocked all of that from her mind. She would give that moment to the man named Ousanas, for whom, over the years, she had come to feel a great loving friendship.

"You will do well," she whispered. "And I have no doubt the girl will find you just as magnificent as I do."

He grinned, gave her hand a last little squeeze, and rose to his feet. Then, reaching over and grasping the great spear which he had left propped securely against the wall of the shield, he turned toward the entrance facing aft.

"First, we must survive this battle. And I suspect the Malwa priests will be pouring over the side onto our decks." His lip curled. "Screaming refugees, pretending to be fierce boarders."

Antonina said nothing. She just basked, for a few seconds, in her enjoyment at watching Ousanas move. Antonina had always had a purely sensuous side, which reveled in the sight of handsome and athletic men. And, in the case of her husband, who was one himself, the feel of such a male body.

But no man, in her life, had ever displayed such pure masculine grace and power as Ousanas. Watching him move reminded her of nothing so much as the Greek legends of Achilles and Ajax. So, for those few seconds, Antonina was able to forget all her tension in the simple pleasure of admiration.

"Now!" shrilled Eusebius. The sailor pumping the lever ceased; another turned a valve; Eusebius himself-this was the most dangerous task-ignited the deathspew gouting from the barrel.

"Just as I said," Antonina murmured to herself, "they're so handy to have around when the crude stuff starts happening."