It took two more hours. But it was not really difficult. Most of the time was spent haggling over the peripheral details.
The Arabs would stay out of sight of land, like the Ethiopians. They would obey the orders of the flotilla commander. (Here, Antonina pointed to Ousanas; the hunter began honing his spear.) They would not wander off if they spotted a lone merchant ship. And so on, and so forth.
Not difficult. Those men knew a good bargain when they saw one. Even if they weren't geniuses.
Chapter 27
The Tigris
'You seem unhappy, Sanga,' commented Damodara. 'Why is that?'
The Malwa lord had drawn up his horse next to the Rajput king, on a slope of the foothills. Damodara gestured at the floodplain below them. A large river was clearly visible, a few miles in the distance, wending its slow way to the sea. 'I should think you'd be delighted at the sight of the Tigris.
Rana Sanga rubbed the scar on his left cheek. Then, realizing what he was doing, drew away the hand. He was a king of Rajputana. Battle scars should be ignored with dignity.
Still frowning, Sanga twisted in his saddle and stared back at the mountains. The peaks of the Zagros front range loomed behind them, like unhappy giants. They, too, seemed creased with worry.
'Something's wrong,' he muttered. Sanga brought his gaze back, staring down at the slope before them. The rolling ground was sprinkled with Rajput cavalrymen. Each cavalry platoon was accompanied by a Pathan tracker, but the presence of the trackers was redundant. The huge trail left by the Roman army would have been obvious- quite literally-to a blind man. Ten thousand horses, and as many pack mules, tear up soil like a Titan's plow.
'Why do you say that?' asked Damodara. 'Are you still concerned that our advance scouts haven't made contact with Belisarius?' The Malwa lord shrugged. 'I don't find that odd. Once Belisarius made the decision to retreat into Mesopotamia, he had every reason to move as quickly as possible. We, on the other hand, have been moving cautiously and slowly. He might have been laying an ambush.'
Damodara pointed to the floodplain, sweeping his hand in a wide arc. 'There's no way to set an ambush
The Malwa commander eased back in his saddle. 'We don't know where he is, that is true. Ctesiphon. More likely Peroz-Shapur. Somewhere else, perhaps. But that he is in the floodplain cannot be doubted. You could hardly ask for a clearer trail.'
Sanga's lips twisted. 'No, you couldn't. And that's exactly what bothers me.' Again, he twisted in the saddle, staring back at the mountains. 'In my experience, Lord Damodara, Belisarius is most to be feared when he seems most obvious.'
Damodara felt a moment's irritation at Sanga's stubborn gloom, but he squelched it. He had learned not to dismiss Sanga's presentiments. The Rajput king, for all his aristocratic trappings, had the combat instincts of a wild animal. The man was as fearless as a tiger, but without a tiger's assumption of supremacy.
Damodara almost laughed at the image which came to him. A mouse the size of a tiger, with a tiger's fangs and claws, wearing Sanga's frowning face. Furious worry; fretting courage.
Sanga was still staring at the mountains. 'I cannot help remembering,' he said slowly, 'another trail left by Belisarius.' He jerked his head slightly, motioning to the floodplain below. 'Just as obvious as that one.'
He settled himself firmly in the saddle. Then, turning to Damodara, he said: 'I would like your permission to retrace our steps. I would need several of my Pathan trackers and my own clansmen. You can spare five hundred cavalrymen for two weeks.'
For the first time, a little smile came to Sanga's face. 'For what it's worth, I don't think you need fear an ambush.' The smile vanished. 'I have a feeling that Belisarius is hunting larger game than us.'
Frowning with puzzlement, Damodara cocked his head southward. 'The only bigger game is Great Lady Holi's army.' The Malwa lord, in Sanga's presence, did not bother with the fiction that Great Lady Holi was simply accompanying the Malwa Empire's main force in Mesopotamia. Sanga knew as well as Damodara that 'Great Lady Holi' was a human shell. Within the exterior of an old woman rested the divine creature from the future named Link. Link, and Link alone, commanded that huge army.
'There are more than a hundred and fifty thousand men in that army, Rana Sanga,' protested Damodara. 'Even now that they have left the fortifications of Charax, and are marching north along the Euphrates, they can have nothing to fear from Belisarius. Military genius or not, the man's army is simply too small to threaten them.'
Sanga shrugged. 'I do not claim to have any answers, Lord Damodara. But I am almost certain that
Damodara did not understand the last remark, but he did not press Sanga for an explanation. Nor did he withhold his permission. Why should he? On the open plain, Belisarius posed no real threat to his army either. He could afford, for two weeks, to lose the services of Rana Sanga and five hundred Rajput cavalrymen.
'Very well,' he said. Damodara paused, rubbing his lower back. 'Probably just as well. The army is weary. While you're gone, we'll make camp by the Tigris. After six months of campaigning, the soldiers could use some rest.'
Chapter 28
The Strait of Hormuz
Wahsi had been skeptical, at first. But, by the time the fleet reached the Strait of Hormuz, even he was satisfied that the Arabs would not give away the secret.
'Not until they discover they've been tricked, at least,' he said to Antonina. The Dakuen commander pressed his shoulders against the mainmast, rubbing them back and forth to relieve an itch. The feline pleasure he seemed to take in the act matched poorly with the unhappy scowl on his face.
Wahsi had been gloomy since the start of the expedition. Like Maurice, Wahsi viewed 'clever plans' with a jaundiced eye-especially plans which depended on timing and secrecy. Synchronization is a myth; stones babble; and nothing ever works the way it should. Those, for Wahsi as much as Maurice, were the Trinity.
'Doesn't really matter, I suppose,' he grumbled sourly. 'I'm sure half the crowd who watched us sail from Adulis were Malwa agents, anyway.'
'Please, Wahsi!' protested Antonina. Smiling: 'You exaggerate. Not more than a third of the crowd, at the most.'
If anything, Wahsi's scowl deepened. Sighing, Antonina decided to retread old ground.
'Wahsi, they saw us sail
'They won't believe-'
'Of course they won't!' snapped Antonina. 'That's why I had my Syrians babble cheerfully in the markets that we had a secret plan to disembark at Aila and march into Mesopotamia. The Malwa will be looking for the truth beneath the illusion, and that should satisfy them. Especially when they see Ashot and the cataphracts-and the whole Cohort except for the gunners-unload from the ships and march inland.' She giggled. 'Koutina looked perfect, too, wearing that obscene replica of my obscene cuirass.'
Wahsi was still scowling. Antonina sighed again.
Exasperated, now: 'Do you really think Malwa spies in Aila are going to match numbers with Malwa spies at the other end of the Red Sea in order to make sure they have the same count of the ships in that huge fleet? Do
