The tide of victory

'And another thing,' she explained, nestling his head into her shoulder. 'When they start nattering about your grammar-'

For the first time, Photius assumed the proper mantle of husbandly authority.

'Hush, wife!' he commanded. He lifted his head, summoned his courage-Emperor of Rome! — and planted a kiss on his wife's cheek. After the evening and night, all those hours, it came almost easily to him.

Tahmina laughed. 'See? Not long!'

Some time later, again, Tahmina was gazing down upon him serenely.

'You will have concubines,' she said softly, 'but I intend to see to it that you do not spend much time with them.'

Photius cleared his throat. 'Uh, actually, concubines are not permitted under Christian law.' A bit guiltily: 'Not supposed to be, anyway.'

Tahmina's eyes grew very round. 'Really? How odd!'

The beautiful eyes narrowed a bit. 'I will be converting, of course, since a Christian empire must have a Christian empress.' Narrowed further. 'I foresee myself a devoted convert.' Slits. 'A religious fanatic, in fact.'

Photius gurgled like a babe. 'S'okay with me!'

'It better be,' growled his wife. A moment later, she was giving him a foretaste of the punishment which awaited Christian sinners.

And so the servants found them. The servants, and Julian.

The prim and proper servants frowned, needless to say. Such unseemly conduct for royalty! But Julian, scarred veteran of many battlefields, was immensely pleased. A Persian empress tickling a Roman emperor, he thought, boded well for the future. Perhaps Belisarius was right, and the thousand year war was finally over.

That still left the Malwa, of course. But that thought brought nothing but a sneer to the cataphract's face. Anything was child's play, compared to Persian dehgans on the field of battle.

Chapter 3

That same morning, while Photius and Tahmina began laying the foundation for their marriage, another wedding took place. This wedding was private, not public. Indeed, not to put too fine a point on it, it was a state secret-unauthorized knowledge of which would earn the headsman's sword.

Another foundation was being laid with this wedding. A new empire was being forged, destined to rise up out of the ruins of Malwa. Or rather, destined to play a great part in Malwa's ruination.

The ceremony was Christian, as was the bride, and as simple a rite as that faith allowed. The bride herself had so stipulated, in defiance of all natural law-had insisted, in fact. She had claimed she wanted a brief and unembellished ceremony purely in the interests of security and secrecy. Given that the bride was acknowledged to be a supreme mistress in the arts of espionage and intrigue, the claim was accepted readily enough. Most people probably even believed it.

But Antonina, watching her best friend Irene kneeling at the altar, was a bit hard-pressed to restrain a smile. She knew the truth.

First thing that scheming woman's going to do, after she gets to Peshawar, is hold the biggest and most splendiferous Buddhist wedding in the history of the world. Last for a month, I bet.

Her eyes moved to the man kneeling next to Irene. Kungas was droning his way through the phrases required of a Christian groom with perfect ease and aplomb.

Any Christian objects, of course, she'll claim her husband made her do it.

Kungas was destined to be the new ruler of a new Kushan empire. The Kushans, in their great majority, adhered to the Buddhist faith. In secret, for the most part, since their Malwa overlords had decreed their grotesque Mahaveda version of Hinduism the established religion and forbade all others. But the secrecy, and the frequent martyrdoms which went with it, had simply welded the Kushans that much more closely to their creed.

Naturally, their new ruler would insist that his wife the empress espouse that faith herself. Naturally. He was a strong-willed man, everyone knew it.

Ha!

Belisarius glanced at down at her, and Antonina fiercely stifled her giggle.

Ha! It was her idea, the schemer! Never would have occurred to Kungas.

Kungas was the closest thing Antonina had ever met to a fabled atheist. Agnostic, for a certainty. He was prepared to accept-as a tentative hypothesis-the existence of a 'soul.' Tentatively, he was even willing to accept the logic that a 'soul' required a 'soul-maker.' Grudgingly, he would allow that such a 'soul-maker' of necessity possessed superhuman powers.

That he-or she-or it-was a god, however.

The God?

'Rampant speculation,' Kungas called it. In private, of course, and in the company of close friends. Kungas was literate, now, in both Greek and Kushan. But he was no intellectual and never would be. 'Rampant speculation' was his lover Irene's serene way of translating his grunted opinion. 'Pure guesswork!' was the way Antonina had heard it.

But if Kungas was no intellectual, there was nothing at all wrong with his mind. That mind had been shaped since childhood in the cauldron of battle and destruction. And if, against all logic, the man who had emerged from that fiery furnace was in his own way a rather gentle man-using the term 'gentle' very loosely-he had a mind as bright and hard as a diamond.

His people were Buddhists, whatever Kungas thought. So would he be, then. And his empress, too, now that she mentioned it to him.

Ha! Pity the poor Malwa!

* * *

In the brief reception which followed the wedding, the Emperor of Iran and non-Iran advanced to present his congratulations along with his wife. So did Theodora, the Empress Regent of Rome. So too did Eon, the negusa nagast of Ethiopia and Arabia, accompanied by his own wife Rukaiya. The man and woman destined to be the rulers of a realm which still existed only in the imagination were being given the official nod of recognition by three of the four most powerful empires in the world.

The most powerful empire, of course, was absent. Which was hardly surprising, since even if that empire had known of this wedding it would hardly have approved. The new realm would be torn from Malwa's own bleeding flank.

Belisarius and Antonina saw no need to join the crowd pressing around Kungas and Irene. Neither did Ousanas.

'Silly business,' muttered Ethiopia's aqabe tsentsen-vizier, in effect, although the title actually translated as 'keeper of the fly-whisks.' The quaint and modest title was in keeping with Ethiopian political custom.

'Silly,' he repeated. He glanced at Antonina. 'Don't lie, woman. You know as well as I do that she'll be a Buddhist soon enough.' He snorted. 'And God knows what else. All those mountains are full of pagans. She'll be getting remarried every week, swearing eternal devotion to whatever prancing goat-god happens to be the local fancy.'

Antonina maintained an aloof smile. 'I think that's absolute nonsense. I can't believe you could be so cynical.' She bestowed the serene expression upon Belisarius. He responded with his own smile, more crooked than ever, but said nothing.

Antonina's smile now went to the small group of soldiers standing just behind her husband. All three of the top Kushan commanders of Belisarius' army-former commanders, as of this moment-were gathered there. Vasudeva was in the center, flanked by Vima and Huvishka.