Barbaricum. Psoes, his name was. She hadn't realized he was following them closely enough to have overheard.
'You're quite right,' he repeated. 'She told me she got the idea from reading Irene Macrembolitissa's account of your exploits in Alexandria.'
Antonina chuckled. 'Irene's fables, you mean. She was long gone from Alexandria and on her way to India before all that happened. That account she wrote was entirely after the fact, and based on hearsay.'
'
He surveyed the ward again, before they passed on to the next. This one was devoted to men recovering from amputations of the lower extremities, where the one they'd passed through earlier was given over to men who'd suffered more severe trauma. The harshly practical mind of the Wife was evident even in the hospital's new design. Triage, everywhere. Partly to keep diseased men from infecting men who were simply injured. Mostly, because the Wife accepted that some men would die, but saw no reason that other men should die unnecessarily.
In times past, hospitals simply heaped men wherever they happened to have a space, with no more forethought than a wind driving leaves against a fence. In such haphazard piles, a man suffering a simple amputation might die from neglect, simply because he was in a ward most of whose occupants were dying anyway.
Agathius came limping up. He'd lagged behind to reassure one of the soldiers from his own personal experience that while wooden legs were certainly a nuisance, they didn't seriously interfere with copulation. Once they were removed, anyway.
'Horrible,' he muttered. 'Thank God Sudaba remained in the palace and didn't see this.'
Antonina lifted an eyebrow. 'She never struck me as being particularly squeamish.'
'She's not.' Agathius glowered around the room. 'That's what I'm worried about. She's already hard enough to control. Once she meets this cursed 'Wife'. .'
The glower came to Antonina. 'I'm blaming you, mostly. You and that damned Macrembolitissa. Hadn't been for your example-hers, even worse! — none of this would be happening.'
'Men's lives
The glower never wavered. 'Who cares? All men die sooner or later anyway. But in the good old days, whatever years we had given to us, we didn't have to spend half of them arguing with the women. It's your fault, Antonina.'
* * *
That evening, over dinner at the palace that had been turned over to them for the duration of their short sojourn in Barbaricum, Antonina recounted the day's activities to those who had remained behind.
Sudaba wasn't interested in the official ceremonies. As a girl whose father was merely a dehgan, she might have been. As a young woman who'd now been married to the top Roman official in Mesopotamia for almost two years and had attended more official ceremonies than she could remember, she wasn't in the least.
What she
'I can't wait to meet this woman,' she said.
Antonina smiled at Agathius. 'Oh, stop glaring at the roast. It's already overcooked as it is.'
'
* * *
It was odd, really, the comfort the stable-keeper took from the presence of the giant Roman soldier. Under any other circumstances, the man-Anastasius, his name-would have terrified him. The stable-keeper was Bengali. Despite the years he'd lived in Kausambi, he'd never really gotten accustomed to the size of western barbarians. The Ye-tai were bad enough. But no Ye-tai the stable-keeper had ever seen was as big and powerful-looking as this Roman.
Anastasius still did frighten the stable-keeper. But since he was so much less terrifying than his companion, the stable-keeper was almost relieved to have him around. He liked to imagine that the giant one would restrain the other-Valentinian, he was called, with another of those bizarre western names-in the all-too-likely event that the man reverted to the predator nature he so obviously possessed.
'Stop bullying the poor man, Valentinian,' the giant rumbled.
'I'm not bullying him. I'm simply pointing out the facts of life.'
The stable-keeper avoided both their gazes. Squatting on the floor of one of his stables and staring at the ground, he whimpered: 'Why did I ever agree to this?'
'Why?' The one named Valentinian leaned over and casually spit on the ground. He was standing, not squatting, and leaning against a nearby stall. 'Four reasons. First, you were stupid enough to catch the eye of somebody powerful-today, if not then-when he came through here some years ago, and impressed him with your competence and sterling character. Fucking idiot. You're what-almost fifty years old? And you still haven't learned that no good deed shall go unpunished?'
The stable-keeper whimpered again. 'I didn't know who he was.'
'Stupider still, then. The second reason is that this stable is about the right distance. Close enough that we could dig to it, far enough away that nobody will connect it to the palace once we blow the tunnel. It's even more or less in the right direction-away from the river.'
He spat again. 'Just bad luck, that. The next two reasons were your own fault, though. To begin with, you were greedy enough to accept our money.'
The whimper that came out now was considerably louder. 'You didn't explain exactly what you were doing,' he protested.
'You didn't ask either, did you? Like I said, too greedy.'
The weasel-faced Roman fell silent, his eyes idly wandering about the gloom of the stable.
The stable-keeper was hoping he wouldn't continue with the explanation.
But, of course, he did.
'The fourth and final reason is that if you don't do what we tell you to do, I'll kill you. Then I'll kill every member of your family after raping your wife and daughters and nieces. Your mother's too old and your sister has bad breath. I'll save the baby for last. He looks pretty tender and I'm sick of lamb.'
The giant rolled his eyes. 'Oh, for the love of God, Valentinian!'
He squatted down next to the stable-keeper and placed a huge hand on his skinny shoulder. Then, gave him a friendly and reassuring smile.
'He's lying,' he assured the stable-keeper. 'Valentinian won't rape the women before he kills them. And all he'll do to the baby is just cut his throat.'
The stable-keeper believed him. Most insane of all was that he
'How is that last reason my fault?' he whined.
Valentinian gave him that horrible weasel smile. 'You weren't born big enough and tough enough and mean enough to fight back against the likes of me, and not rich enough to hire a small army to do it for you. Maybe in your next life, you won't be so careless.'
* * *
Valentinian and Anastasius spent several hours in the tunnel, on the way back, checking and inspecting everything.
More precisely, Anastasius pretended to check the timbers and shoring, while Valentinian gave the Bihari miners and their remaining Ye-tai guards that level and dark-eyed stare that could intimidate a demon. Neither Valentinian nor Anastasius were miners, after all, so they really had no good idea what to look for. True, they had considerable experience at siege work-as both defenders and attackers-but neither of them had ever been used as sappers. That was specialty work, and not something that cataphracts generally got involved in.
'Ignore him,' Anastasius assured the miners. 'He just likes to stay in practice.'
In a half-crouch due to the low ceiling, Anastasius planted his hands on his knees and smiled at the chief of the miners. 'It looks good to me. But we don't want it to be