Fortune's stroke

Aide amplified. Gold coins, crystal and red coral from the Roman Empire, in exchange for silk from China. Some jewelry, both ways.

Belisarius scratched his chin, as he invariably did when deep in thought. 'Damodara would have one advantage,' he added slowly. 'He wouldn't have to worry about brigands. No hill bandit in his right mind would attack a Malwa military caravan.'

'Pathans would,' countered Maurice, referring to the fiercest of the mountain tribes. 'Those bastards- down!'

He and Belisarius hastily crouched in their trench. Nearby, Anastasius and Valentinian did the same. A volley of Malwa rockets sailed overhead, passing no more than ten feet above them. A few seconds later, they heard the explosive sounds of the rockets landing somewhere on the back slope of the saddle pass.

As soon as Belisarius was certain that the volley had ended, he rose and peered behind him. He had taken position in a trench at the very crest of the pass, allowing him as good a view of the back slope as the foreground. Leaning over the log parapet, he studied the scene intently.

His brow was creased with worry. Belisarius had positioned his handcannon troops just behind the crest of the pass. They would-he thought-be out of danger there until he needed them. And out of sight of the enemy. The handcannons were Belisarius' own little surprise for the Malwa. He had not used them yet, in this campaign, and he hoped that Damodara and Sanga were still unaware of their existence.

Maurice joined him. The chiliarch, after one quick look, verbalized Belisarius' own thoughts.

'No damage. The rockets passed over them too.' Maurice's face broke into a grin. That was a rare expression, on his face. Belisarius was amused to see that it was probably the least humorous grin in the world. Wintry, you might call it.

'But I'll bet they're not whining anymore about all the digging you make them do,' chuckled Maurice. He and Belisarius could see the first heads of the handcannon troops popping up from their trenches. Those soldiers were not more than fifty yards away, and their expressions caused Belisarius to break into his own grin. Worry, fear- combined with more than a dose of outrage.

What the hell is this? Here we were, enjoying a pleasant moment of relaxation, engrossed in cursing that damn fool General Pick-and-Shovel who makes us dig trenches every time we take two steps, and-

What the hell's going on? It's not fair!

Still grinning, Belisarius turned around and resumed his study of the enemy. After a moment, he picked up the broken thread of their conversation.

'Pathans wouldn't attack Damodara's supply trains. Don't forget, Maurice, those caravans would be protected by Rajput troops. Sanga's Rajputs, to boot. And I'm sure Sanga would see to it that the information was passed on to the tribesmen. He has his own Pathan trackers, you know.'

Belisarius looked at the large body of Rajput cavalry that formed the right wing of the enemy's formation. There were a smaller number of Rajputs on the Malwa left wing, but Belisarius had spotted Sanga earlier through his telescope. In this coming battle, the Rajput king had been assigned to the right. With his naked eyes, Belisarius couldn't distinguish Sanga any longer from the thousands of other Rajputs massed on that side of the battlefield. But he was certain that Sanga was still there.

'Sanga led the last punitive expedition which the Rajputs sent against the Pathans,' he said, speaking softly. 'That was years ago. There haven't been any since because Sanga ravaged them so badly-' Belisarius broke off, with a little grimace. 'Bloody business, that is.'

Maurice gave his commander a quick, shrewd glance. Belisarius, in the past, had led his own punitive expeditions against barbarians. In the trans-Danube, several times; and, once, against the Isaurians in Asia Minor. Even as young as he'd been then-and Belisarius was still shy of thirty-his campaigns had already been marked by sagacity and cunning.

They'd also been brutal and savage, as campaigns against barbarians always were. Belisarius had a detestation of cruelty which was unusual in soldiers of the time. Some of that aversion, thought Maurice, was simply due to the man's nature. But that natural inclination had been hardened and tempered by the sight of Goth and Isaurian villages visited by his own troops.

Seeing beneath Belisarius' now-expressionless face, Maurice turned his eyes away. He was quite sure, in that moment, that he knew what Belisarius was thinking. An image came to Maurice, as vividly as if it had just happened yesterday. He remembered seeing Belisarius standing over the body of a child in one of those villages. The young commander-still in his teens, he'd been-had just arrived, with Maurice and some of his Thracian cataphracts. The village was in flames, but the main body of the army had already passed through, rampaging on ahead.

Judging by the size of the pitiful little corpse, the Goth had been not more than five years old. Belisarius' soldiers had set a sharpened stake in the ground, impaled the boy, castrated him-and cut off his penis for good measure-amputated his arms, and then, mercifully, cut his throat. But neither Belisarius nor Maurice, surveying the scene, doubted the sequence in which the soldiers had committed their atrocities. For minutes which must have seemed an eternity to their victim, Roman troops had subjected a helpless child to the cruelest tortures imaginable.

The naked and disemboweled body of a girl had been lying nearby. The boy's mother, perhaps, but more likely his sister. The corpse's face was nothing but a pulp, covered with half-dried, crusted blood. It was impossible to discern her features, but the body itself seemed not far past puberty. The girl had obviously been gang-raped before she was murdered.

Remembering, Maurice could still hear Belisarius' quiet and anguished words. 'And these men call themselves Christians?'

Prior to that day, Belisarius had simply tried to restrain his army. Thereafter, he instituted the draconian policy regarding atrocities for which he was famous-notorious, from the viewpoint of some soldiers and all mercenary troops. As it happened, by good fortune, the men responsible for that particular atrocity had been identified and arrested within a week. Belisarius immediately ordered their execution. The army had almost mutinied, but Belisarius already had his corps of hand-picked Thracian bucellarii to enforce his orders.

Still, the atrocities continued, if not as often. It was almost impossible to restrain troops completely in war against barbarians, since so many of the soldiers in the campaigns were borderers. Barbarians were guilty of their own brutal practices, and the soldiers burned for vengeance. In the dispersed nature of such combat, troops soon learned to keep their savageries hidden.

Maurice banished the memory. Again, he glanced at Belisarius. The general's gaze was still on the Rajput troops, where Sanga commanded, and his lips were moving. Maurice could not hear the words he spoke, but he thought he knew what they were. Belisarius had told him of the message which the Great Ones of the future had given to Aide, to guide the crystal in its search for help in the ancient past of humanity.

Find the general who is not a warrior, had been part of that message. But there had also been: See the enemy in the mirror, the friend across the field.

Belisarius emitted a little sigh, and shook his head. The motion was quick and abrupt, as if he were tossing something off. When the general turned back to Maurice, there was no sign of anything in his brown eyes but the calm self-control of an experienced commander on a battlefield.

'We've got some time,' Belisarius pronounced. As if to verify his words, the distant Malwa batteries erupted in new salvos. After a quick glance, Maurice ignored them. From their trajectories, none of the missiles would strike in their vicinity. He gave his attention back to the general.

'At least an hour,' continued Belisarius, 'before they start their first assault.' He began walking toward the cross-trench which gave access to the back slope. From habit, Belisarius stayed in a semicrouch, but it was obvious from the casual way he looked back at Maurice that he had come to the same assessment of the current barrage's accuracy.

'Kurush should still be in the field headquarters. I want to talk to him.' Belisarius pointed to the enemy. 'There's a bit of a mystery here that I'd like to clear up, if we can. I don't like bad news of any kind, but I especially don't like surprises.'

As Belisarius had hoped, Kurush was in the field headquarters. The young Persian nobleman had arrived just the day before, accompanied by three subordinate officers. He had been sent by Emperor Khusrau to reestablish liaison with the Romans. Since Belisarius had led his army into the Zagros, in hopes of delaying Damodara's