Fortune's stroke

For all her sweltering discomfort, Antonina did not begrudge them that ceremony. True, she suspected that most of the converts were driven by less-than-spiritual motives. Canny merchants, seeing an angle. But not all of them. And not even, she thought, any of them-not completely, at least.

Arabia was a land where religion seethed, under the surface. Most Arabs of the time were still pagans, despite the great success which Jewish and Christian missionaries had found there. But even Arabia's pagans, she knew, had a sense that there was a supreme god ruling the many deities of their pantheons. They called that god Allah.

As the conversion ceremony wound its way onward, Antonina's mind began to drift. She recalled a conversation she had had with Belisarius, before he left for Persia.

Her husband had told her of a religion which would rise out of Arabia, in what had been the future of humanity. Islam, it would be called, submission to the one god named Allah. The religion would be brought by a new prophet not more than a century in the future. A man named Muhammad-

For a moment, she started erect, snapped out of her reverie by a specific memory of that conversation. Her eyes darted to Rukaiya, standing in the center of the square.

Muhammad will also be from the Beni Hashim clan of the Quraysh. And, if I remember right, will have a daughter named Rukaiya.

She realized that her choice of Rukaiya, in ways she had not even considered, had probably already changed history. The Beni Hashim of Muhammad's future had not been Christians, except for a few. After today, they would be. How would that fact affect the future?

She slipped back into memory.

'Will it still happen, now?' she had asked Belisarius. 'After all that's changed?'

Her husband shrugged. 'Who's to know? The biggest reason Islam swept the Levant, and Egypt, was because the Monophysites converted almost at once. Voluntarily, most of them. Muhammad's stark monotheism, I think, appealed to their own brand of Christianity. Monophysitism is about as close as you can get to Islam, within the boundaries of the Trinity.'

Belisarius scowled. 'And after centuries of persecution by orthodox Christians, I think the Monophysites had had enough. They saw the Arabs as liberators, not conquerors.'

Antonina spoke. 'Anthony's trying-'

'I know he is,' agreed Belisarius. 'And I hope the new Patriarch of Constantinople will be able to rein in that persecution.' Again, he shrugged. 'But who's to know?'

Standing in the square, sweating in her robes, Antonina could still remember the strange look which had come to her husband's face.

'It's odd, really,' he'd said, 'how I feel about it. We have already, just in what we've done these past few years, changed history irrevocably.' He patted his chest, where Aide lay in his little pouch. 'The visions Aide shows me are just that, now. I can still learn an enormous amount from them, of course, but they're really no more than illusions. They'll never happen-not the way he shows me, anyway.'

His face, for a moment, had been suffused with a great sadness. 'I don't think there will ever be a Muhammad. Not the same way, at least. He might still arise, of course, and be a prophet. But if Anthony succeeds, I think Muhammad will more likely be a force regenerating Christianity than the founder of a new religion. That was how he saw himself, actually, in the beginning-until orthodox Christians and the Jews rejected him, and he found an audience among pagans and Monophysites.'

Antonina had been puzzled. 'Why does that make you sad? I would think you'd prefer it. You're a Christian, yourself.'

Belisarius' smile, when it came, had been very crooked. 'Am I?'

She remembered herself gasping. And, just as clearly, could remember the warm smile in her husband's face.

'Be at ease, love. Christianity suits me fine. I've no intention of abandoning it. It's just-'

The look of strangeness, of strange wonder, was back on his face. 'I've seen so much, Antonina,' he whispered. 'Aide has taken me millions of years into the future, to stars beyond the galaxy. How could the simple certainties of the Thracian countryside withstand such visions?'

She had been mute. Belisarius reached out and caressed her face.

'I am certain of only one thing,' he said. 'I can't follow half of Anthony's theology, but I know he's right. God made the Trinity so unfathomable because He does not want men to understand Him. It's enough that we look for Him.'

His hand, leaving her cheek, swept the universe. 'Which we will, love. Which we will. We are fighting this war, at bottom, so that people can make that search. Wherever the road leads them.'

His gentle smile returned. 'That's good enough. For a simple Thracian boy, raised to be a soldier, that's more than good enough.'

Finally, it was ending. Antonina almost sagged from relief. She felt like a melting blob of butter.

She watched as Eon turned to Rukaiya and removed the veil. Then, she fought down a grin. The King of Ethiopia, for the first time, saw his new wife's face. He seemed like an ox, struck between the eyes by a mallet.

A little gasp-not so little, actually-went up from the crowd. Some of that was caused by shock, at seeing a young woman unveiled in public. The Arabs had known it was coming, of course. Eon had made very clear that he was only willing to concede so much to Arab traditions. Ethiopian women did not wear veils, not even young virgins, and the King of Kings had stated in no uncertain terms that his new wife would follow Axumite custom in that regard. Still, the matrons in the square were shocked. Shocked, shocked! They could hardly wait to scurry home and start talking about the scandal of it all.

But most of the gasps came from Rukaiya's sheer beauty. The crowd had been expecting a pretty girl, true. But not-not this.

Within seconds, the gasps gave way to murmurs. Looks of shock and surprise were replaced by-

I will be damned, thought Antonina. I didn't even think of that.

'You are a genius yourself, Antonina,' whispered Ousanas. 'That is what a queen should look like. And will you look at the greedy bastards? Every one of those coin-counting merchants just realized there's no way the King of Kings is going to ignore his new Quraysh bride.'

Garmat's opinion was otherwise. 'She's too gorgeous,' he complained. 'We'll never be able to pry Eon out of bed.' With a hiss: 'What were you thinking, Antonina?'

Antonina ignored the old fart. She simply basked, a bit, in the admiring glances sent her way by the crowd. And she positively wallowed in the penumbra of another's admiration. Even at the distance, she could not misread Eon's face. That young face had been shadowed, ever since he found the mangled bodies of his concubines in the stones of the Ta'akha Maryam. Now, at last, she could see the shadow start to lift.

Like her husband before her, Antonina had come to love Eon as if he were her own son. She realized, now that it was over, that she been guided throughout by a mother's instinct-not the calculations of a diplomat. She trusted that instinct, far more than she trusted the machinations of politics.

Garmat still didn't understand, but Ousanas did. The tall hunter leaned over and whispered: 'A genius, I say it again.'

Antonina shrugged modestly. 'It's a good match. The girl's father, I think, will make an excellent adviser in his own right. And Rukaiya herself is very intelligent. She'll-'

'Not that nonsense,' snorted Ousanas.

He sneered at Garmat. Ousanas' sneer was as magnificent as his grin. 'Politics is a silly business. Games for boys too old to grow up.' The famous grin made its appearance. 'Wise folk, like you and me, understand the truth. As long as the boy is happy, he will do well. Everything else is meaningless.'

That evening, at the great feast in the palace, Eon sidled up to her. He began to fumble with words of thanks and appreciation.

Antonina smiled. 'She's very beautiful, isn't she?'