The Dance of Time

periodically calculated risks he took, proving to his men that he was willing to share their dangers and hardships. It was, in fact, purely and simply a scouting expedition-and not one in which he expected to encounter any enemies.

Why would he, after all? The Thar was enemy enough, to any human. With the exception of some small nomadic tribes, no one ventured into it willingly. There was no logical reason for the Malwa to be sending patrols into its interior. In any event, Belisarius had been careful to enter the desert much farther south than the most advanced Malwa contingents.

Aide wasn't any happier at the situation than the bodyguards were.

This is purely stupid. Why are you bothering, anyway? You already crossed the Thar, once before, when you were fleeing India. And don't try to deny it! I was there, remember?

Belisarius ignored him, for a moment. His eyes continued to range the landscape, absorbing it as best he could.

True, he had crossed this desert once-albeit a considerable distance to the south. Still, what he could see here was not really any different from what he'd seen years earlier. The Thar desert, like most deserts, is much of a sameness.

Yes, I remember-but my memories were those of the man who crossed this desert then. One man, alone, on a camel rather than a horse, and with plenty of water and supplies. I needed to see it again, to really bring back all the memories.

I could have done that for you, Aide pointed out peevishly. One of the crystal's seemingly-magical powers was an ability to bring back any of Belisarius' memories-while Aide had been with him, at least-as vividly as if they'd just happened.

Belisarius shook his head slightly. It's still not the same. I need to feel the heat again, on my own skin. Gauge it, just as I gauge the dryness and the barrenness.

He gave Abbu, riding just behind him to his left, a little jerk of the head to summon him forward.

'What do you think?' he asked the leader of his Arab scouts.

Abbu's grizzle-bearded countenance glared at the desert. 'It is nothing, next to the Empty Quarter!'

Bedouin honor having been satisfied, he shrugged. 'Still, it is a real desert. No oases, even, from what I've been told.'

He's right, Aide chimed in. There aren't any. The desert isn't as bad as it will become a millennia and a half from now, when the first real records were maintained. The Thar is a fairly recent desert. Still, as the old bandit says, it is indeed a real desert. And no artesian wells, either.

Belisarius mused on the problem, for a minute or so.

Could we dig our own wells, then?

I could find the spots for you. Very likely ones, at least. The records are good, and the aquifers would not have changed much. But there are no guarantees, and. . In a desert this bad, if even one of my estimates proves wrong, it could be disastrous.

Belisarius was considerably more sanguine than Aide, on that score. He had found many times that Aide's superhuman intellect, while it often floundered with matters involving human emotions, rarely failed when it came to a straightforward task of deduction based on a mass of empirical data.

Still, he saw no reason to take unnecessary chances.

'Abbu, if I send you and some of your men through this desert-a dozen or two, whatever you wish-along with a chart indicating the likely spots to dig wells, could you find them?'

Abbu's expression was sour. 'I don't read charts easily,' he grumbled. 'Detest the newfangled things.'

Belisarius suppressed a smile. What Abbu said was true enough-the part about detesting the things, at any rate-but the scout leader was perfectly capable of reading them well enough. Even if he weren't, he had several young Arabs who could read and interpret maps and charts as easily as any Greek. What was really involved here was more the natural dislike of an old bedouin at the prospect of digging a number of wells in a desert.

You'd be an idiot to trust him to do it properly, anyway. If you want good wells made-ones that you can depend on, weeks or months later-you'd do better to use Greeks.

Teaching your grandfather to suck eggs again? I just want Abbu to find the spots. I'll send some of my bucellarii with him to do the work. Thracians will be even better than Greeks.

After he explained the plan to Abbu, the scout leader was mollified. 'Easy, then,' he announced. 'Take us three weeks.'

'No longer?'

Abbu squinted at the desert. 'Maybe a month. The Thar is three hundred miles across, you say?'

Not really, Aide chimed in. Not today, before the worst of the desiccation has happened. Say, two hundred miles of real desert, with a fifty-mile fringe. We're still in the fringe here, really.

'Figure two hundred miles of real desert, Abbu, with another fifty on either side like this terrain.'

The old Arab ran fingers through his beard. 'And you want us to use horses. Not camels?'

Belisarius nodded.

'Then, as I say, three, maybe four weeks. Coming back will be quick, with the wells already dug.'

Abbu cocked his head a little, looking at Belisarius through narrowed eyes.

'What rashness are you contemplating, General?'

Belisarius pointed with his chin toward the east. 'When the time comes-if the time comes-I may want to lead an expedition across that desert. To Ajmer.'

'Ajmer?' The Arab chief's eyes almost literally bulged. 'You are mad! Ajmer is the main city of the Rajputs. It would take you ten thousand men-maybe fifteen-to seize the city. Then, you would be lucky to hold it against the counterattack.'

He stretched out his hand and flipped it, simultaneously indicating the desert with the gesture and dismissing everything else. 'You cannot-can not, General, not even you-get more than a thousand men across that desert. Not even with wells dug. Not even in this fine rabi season-and we'll soon be in the heat of garam. With camels, maybe two thousand. But with horses? A thousand at most!'

'I wasn't actually planning to take a thousand,' Belisarius said mildly. 'I think five hundred of my bucellarii will suffice. With an additional two hundred of your scouts, as outriders.'

'Against Rajputs?' Fiercely, Abbu shook his head. 'Not a chance, General. Not with only five hundred of your best Thracians. Not even with splendid Arab scouts. We would not get within sight of Ajmer before we were overrun. Not all the Rajputs are in the Deccan with Damodara, you know. Many are not.'

Belisarius nodded placidly. 'A great many, according to my spies. I'm counting on that, in fact. I need at least fifteen thousand Rajputs to be in or around Ajmer when we arrive. Twenty would be better.'

Abbu rolled his eyes. 'What lunacy is this? You are expecting the Rajputs to become changed men? Lambs, where once they were lions?'

Belisarius chuckled. 'Oh, not that, certainly. I'd have no use for Rajput lambs. But. . yes, Abbu. If I do this- which I may well not, since right now it's only a possibility-then I expect the Rajputs to have changed.'

He reined his horse around. 'More than that, I will not say. This is all speculation, in any event. Let's get back to the Triangle.'

* * *

When they returned to the Triangle, Belisarius gave three orders.

The first summoned Ashot from the Sukkur gorge. He was no longer needed there, in command of the Roman forces, now that the Persians had established firm control over the area.

'I'll want him in charge of the bucellarii, of course,' he told Maurice, 'since you'll have to remain behind.'

The bucellarii were Belisarius' picked force of Thracian cataphracts, armored heavy cavalrymen. A private army, in essence, that he'd maintained for years. A large one, too, numbering by now seven thousand men. He could afford it, since the immense loot from the past years of successful campaigns-first, against the Persians; and then, in alliance with them against the Malwa-had made Belisarius the richest person in the Roman Empire except for Justinian and Theodora.