Maurice managed not to smile.
"Yes, Your Majesty." He patted the old mare's neck. Then, helped Theodora into the saddle. The task was difficult, between Theodora's clumsiness and the stern necessity of never planting a boosting hand on the imperial rump.
Now astride the horse, Theodora looked down at Antonina.
"Remember, then. As soon as I send the word, get your cohort to Constantinople. And don't forget—"
"Be on your way, Theodora," interrupted Antonina, smiling. "I will not forget any of your instructions. Hermogenes has already picked out his regiments. Sittas is doing the same. The Bishop's making the secret arrangement for the ships. And the ten cataphracts left for Egypt yesterday."
"Ashot's in command," stated Maurice. "One of my best decarchs. When Belisarius finally arrives, he'll get him here—or to the capital, whichever's needed—as fast as possible."
Theodora sat back in her saddle, nodded.
Then, looking down at her horse:
"Maybe there'll be sieges, after all," she muttered grimly.
She put her horse into motion awkwardly. Her last words:
"Keep that in mind, horse."
The next day, Maurice wiped the grins off the faces of the grenadiers.
"To be sure, lads, Antonina's your commander," he said, pacing up and down their ranks. "But commanders are aloof folk, you know. Very aloof. Have nothing to do with the routine of daily training." He stopped, planted his hands on hips. "No, no. That's trivial stuff. Always leave that sort of thing in the hands of lowly hecatontarchs."
Grimly: "That's me."
The grenadiers eyed him warily. Eyed the grinning cataphracts who stood nearby. The announcement had just been made that they were to be the new trainers.
Maurice gestured in their direction.
"These are what we call—cadre."
Very evil grins, those cataphracts possessed.
"Oh, yes," murmured Maurice. "Now your training begins in earnest. Forget all that silly showpiece stuff for the Empress."
He resumed his pacing. "I will begin by introducing you to the First Law of Battle. This law can be stated simply. Every battle plan gets fucked up as soon as the enemy arrives. That's why he's called the enemy."
He stopped, turned, smiled cheerfully.
"Your own plans just got fucked up."
Grinned ear to ear.
"I have arrived."
Yes, the grins disappeared from their faces. But the smile in the hearts of those young peasants did not. Not ever, in the weeks which followed, for all the many curses which they bestowed upon Maurice. (Behind his back, needless to say.)
No, not once. The young Syrians were not foolish. Not even the men, and certainly not their wives. Uneducated and illiterate, yes. Stupid, no. For all their pleasure in their new-found status, they had never really thought it was anything but a serious business.
They were a practical folk. Serious business, they understood. And they had their own peasant estimate of serious folk.
Antonina was a joy; the Empress had been a pleasure. Sittas was a fine magnanimous lord; Cassian the very archetype of a true bishop.
And Michael, of course, a prophet on earth.
But it was time for serious business, now. Peasant work. And so, though they never grinned, Syrian peasants took no offense—and lost no heart—from the abuse of Thracians.
Farm boys, themselves, at bottom, those Thracian cataphracts. Peasants, nothing better.
Just very, very tough peasants.
And so, as summer became autumn, and as autumn turned to winter—
—a general and his allies fought to escape Malwa's talons,
—an Empress watched an empire unravel in Constantinople,
—conspirators plotted everywhere—
And a few hundred peasants and their wives toiled under the Syrian sun. Doing what peasants do best, from the experience of millenia.
Toughening.
Chapter 17
NORTH INDIA
Summer 530 ad
When they came upon the third massacre, Rana Sanga had had enough.
"This is madness," he snarled. "The Roman is doing it to us again."
His chief lieutenant, Jaimal, tore his eyes away from the bloody corpses strewn on both sides of the road. There were seven bodies there, in addition to the three soldiers they had found lying in the guardhouse itself. All of them were common soldiers, and all of them had been slaughtered like so many sheep. Judging from the lack of blood on any of the weapons lying nearby, Jaimal did not think the soldiers had inflicted a single wound on their assailants. Most of them, he suspected, had not even tried. At least half had been slain while trying to flee.