The Dance of Time

might or might not be, depending on where they came from. Anna suspected this one was an outright bedouin.

The soldiers were lounging in the shade of a small pavilion they had erected. For a moment, as she had when she first caught sight of them, Anna found herself wondering how they had gotten there in the first place. They had no boat, nor any horses or camels-yet they possessed too much in the way of goods in sacks to have lugged them on their own shoulders. Not through this arid country, with their armor and weapons. She decided they had probably traveled with a caravan, and then parted company for some reason.

But this was no time for idle speculation. The rivermen were very close now. The soldiers returned Anna's beseeching eyes with nothing more than indifference. It was clear enough they had no more intention of intervening than her own sailors.

Still-they could, in a way that two elderly sailors couldn't.

Pay them.

Moving as quickly as she could in her elaborate clothing-and cursing herself silently, again, for having been so stupid as to make this insane journey without giving a thought to her apparel-Anna walked over to them. She could only hope they understood Greek. She knew no other language.

'I need help,' she hissed.

The soldier in the center of the little group, one of the Isaurians, glanced at the eight rivermen and chuckled.

'I'd say so. You'll be lucky if they don't kill you after they rob and rape you.'

His Greek was fluent, if heavily accented. As he proceeded to demonstrate further. 'Stupid noblewoman. Brains like a chicken. Are you some kind of idiot, traveling alone down this part of Mesopotamia? The difference between a riverman here and a pirate-'

He turned his head and spit casually over the leg of the other Isaurian. His brother, judging from the close resemblance.

'I'll pay you,' she said.

The two brothers exchanged glances. The one on the side, who seemed to be the younger one, shrugged. 'We can use her boat to take us out of Mesopotamia. Beats walking, and the chance of another caravan. . But nothing fancy,' he muttered. 'We're almost home.'

His older brother grunted agreement and turned his head to look at the Arab. The Arab's shrug expressed the same tepid enthusiasm. 'Nothing fancy,' he echoed. 'It's too hot.'

The Isaurian in the middle lazed to his feet. He wasn't much taller than Anna, but his stocky and muscular build made him seem to loom over her.

'All right. Here's the way it is. You give us half your money and whatever other valuables you've got.' He tapped the jeweled necklace around her throat. 'The rivermen can take the rest of it. They'll settle for that, just to avoid a brawl.'

She almost wailed. Not quite. 'I can't. I need the money to get to-'

The soldier scowled. 'Idiot! We'll keep them from taking your boat, we'll leave you enough-just enough-to get back to your family, and we'll escort you into Anatolia.'

He glanced again at the rivermen. They were standing some few yards away, hesitant now. 'You've no business here, girl,' he growled quietly. 'Just be thankful you'll get out of this with your life.'

His brother had gotten to his feet also. He snorted sarcastically. 'Not to mention keeping your precious hymen intact. That ought to be worth a lot, once you get back to your family.'

The fury which had filled Anna for months boiled to the surface. 'I don't have a hymen,' she snarled. 'My husband did for that, the bastard, before he went off to war.'

Now the Arab was on his feet. Hearing her words, he laughed aloud. 'God save us! An abandoned little wife, no less.'

The rivermen were beginning to get surly, judging from the scowls which had replaced the previous leers. One of them barked something in a language which Anna didn't recognize. One of the Aramaic dialects, probably. The Isaurian who seemed to be the leader of the three soldiers gave them another glance and an idle little wave of his hand. The gesture more or less indicated: relax, relax-you'll get a cut.

That done, his eyes came back to Anna. 'Idiot,' he repeated. The word was spoken with no heat, just lazy derision. 'Think you're the first woman got abandoned by a husband looking to make his fortune in war?'

'He already has a fortune,' hissed Anna. 'He went looking for fame. Found it too, damn him.'

The Arab laughed again. 'Fame, is it? Maybe in your circles! And what is the name of this paragon of martial virtue? Anthony the Illustrious Courier?'

The other three soldiers shared in the little laugh. For a moment, Anna was distracted by the oddity of such flowery phrases coming out of the mouth of a common soldier. She remembered, vaguely, that her husband had once told her of the poetic prowess of Arabs. But she had paid little attention, at the time, and the memory simply heightened her anger.

'He is famous,' Anna insisted. A certain innate honesty forced her to add: 'At least in Constantinople, after Belisarius' letter was read to the Senate. And his own dispatches.'

The name Belisarius brought a sudden little stillness to the group of soldiers. The Isaurian leader's eyes narrowed.

'Belisarius? What's the general got to do with your husband?'

'And what's his name?' added the Arab.

Anna tightened her jaws. 'Calopodius. Calopodius Saronites.'

The stillness turned into frozen rigidity. All three soldiers' eyes were now almost slits.

The Isaurian leader drew a deep breath. 'Are you trying to tell us that you are the wife of Calopodius the Blind?'

For a moment, a spike of anguish drove through the anger. She didn't really understand where it came from. Calopodius had always seemed blind to her, in his own way. But. .

Her own deep breath was a shaky thing. 'They say he is blind now, yes. Belisarius' letter to the Senate said so. He says it himself, in fact, in his letters. I–I guess it's true. I haven't seen him in many months. When he left. .'

One of the rivermen began to say something, in a surly tone of voice. The gaze which the Isaurian now turned on him was nothing casual. It was a flat, flat gaze. As cold as a snake's and just as deadly. Even a girl as sheltered as Anna had been all her life understood the sheer physical menace in it. The rivermen all seemed to shuffle back a step or two.

He turned his eyes back to Anna. The same cold and flat gleam was in them. 'If you are lying. .'

'Why would I lie?' she demanded angrily. 'And how do you expect me to prove it, anyway?'

Belatedly, a thought came to her. 'Unless. .' She glanced at the little sailing craft which had brought her here, still piled high with her belongings. 'If you can read Greek, I have several of his letters to me.'

The Arab sighed softly. 'As you say, why would you lie?' His dark eyes examined her face carefully. 'God help us. You really don't even understand, do you?'

She shook her head, confused. 'Understand what? Do you know him yourself?'

The Isaurian leader's sigh was a more heartfelt thing. 'No, lass, we didn't. We were so rich, after Charax, that we left the general's service. We-' he gestured at his brother '-I'm Illus, by the way, and he's Cottomenes-had more than enough to buy us a big farm back home. And Abdul decided to go in with us.'

'I'm sick of the desert,' muttered the Arab. 'Sick of camels, too. Never did like the damn beasts.'

The Arab was of the same height as the two Isaurian brothers-about average-but much less stocky in his frame. Still, in his light half-armor and with a spatha scabbarded to his waist, he seemed no less deadly.

'Come to think of it,' he added, almost idly, 'I'm sick of thieves, too.'

The violence that erupted shocked Anna more than anything in her life. She collapsed in a squat, gripping her knees with shaking hands, almost moaning with fear.

There had been no sign; nothing, at least, that she had seen. The Isaurian leader simply drew his spatha-so quick, so quick! — took three peculiar little half steps and cleaved the skull of one of the rivermen before the man even had time to do more than widen his eyes. A second or two later, the same spatha tore open another's throat.