Destiny's shield

shattered storefront. 'Except that bunch. They tried to hole up in there. After we tossed in a couple of grenades, the half-dozen survivors surrendered.' A self-explanatory wave at the grisly ornaments on the crossbeams.

Then, apologetically:

'We couldn't catch the rest. They ran too fast.'

Then, accusingly:

'You didn't give us any cavalry.'

'Can't catch routed men without cavalry,' chimed in Triphiodoros. The sage voice of experience: 'Men running for their lives always run faster than men who are just wanting to kill them.'

Sage voice of experience: 'Got to have cavalry, to really whip an enemy.'

Antonina laughed. Shook her head, half-regretfully, half-ruefully. 'I'll remember that!'

She turned her eyes to the Delta Quarter itself, just across the wide thoroughfare. That side of the street was lined with Jews. Young men, mostly, armed with cudgels, knives and the occasional sword or spear. As Hermogenes had predicted, the Jews had been quite ready to fight it out with the Hippodrome mob. Wouldn't have been the first time.

But, just as obviously, the tension of the moment had passed. Even the young bravos were relaxed, now, exchanging half-amicable words with Syrian grenadiers. And she could see women and children, too, here and there, as well as old folks. The children, filled with eager curiosity. The women, beginning to banter with the Syrian wives. And the old folks, of course-not for them this useless time-wasting-were already setting up their foodcarts and vending stalls. Life comes; life goes. Business is here today.

'Very good,' Antonina murmured. 'Very good.'

Euphronius tried to maintain an officer's dignity, but his quiet relief at her approval was evident.

She smiled down at him. 'Leave half your grenadiers here, Hermogenes. Along with Triphiodoros and his infantry. Just in case. Doesn't look as if the Greens showed up today. Maybe that's because they usually side with the Monophysites, but maybe it's because they're just dithering. If they change their minds, I want grenadiers here to change it back.'

Euphronius nodded.

'Meanwhile, I want you and the rest to come with me.'

She cocked her head, admiring the collapsed storefront. Her smile turned positively feral.

'I need some demolition experts.'

By nightfall, the House of St. Mark was a pile of rubble. Buried beneath that mound of wooden beams and sundried brick were the bodies of perhaps a hundred ultra-orthodox monks. Nobody knew the exact number. From the rooftop and the windows, the monks had shrieked their defiance at the surrounding troops. Vowing never to surrender. They had particularly aimed their words at the figure of the small woman in armor sitting on a horse.

We will not yield to the Whore of Babylon!

And other phrases-considerably more vulgar-to that effect.

Antonina had not minded. Not in the least. She would not have accepted their surrender even if it had been offered. So, cheerfully, she waited for several minutes before ordering the grenadiers into action. Establishing, for the public record, that the monks had brought their doom onto themselves.

Murmuring, under her breath, a gay little jingle, as the grenades drove the monks into the interior of the huge monastery:

She's back, she's back!

The whore is back!

Chuckling quietly, as the sappers set the charges:

Alas, Alexandria!

Thy judgement has come!

Chortling aloud, as the walls came tumbling down:

How are the righteous fallen!

Chapter 34

Antonina rose before dawn the next morning, at an hour which normally found her fast asleep. But she was determined to drive through her reestablishment of imperial control without allowing the opposition a moment to regain their equilibrium.

Her servants bustled about, preparing her breakfast and clothing. When the time came to don her armor, Antonina was amused by the way her maid ogled the cuirass.

'The thing's obscene, I'll admit,' she chuckled.

She walked over and examined the cuirass lying on an upholstered bench against the far wall of her sleeping chamber. Jutting into the air.

'Especially since my reputation must have grown in the telling, by the time the armorer got around to shaping his mold.'

Firmly: 'My tits are not that big.'

The maid eyed her hesitantly, unsure of how to respond. The girl was new to Antonina's service. Antonina's regular maid had become ill at sea, and this girl had been hastily rounded up by her head servant Dubazes from the staff of the palace's former occupant.

There had been few of that staff left, when they arrived. Upon the arrival of Antonina's fleet, and the destruction of the naval forces which tried to block her way into the Great Harbor, the former owner had fled Alexandria. He was a Greek nobleman with close ties to Paul and Ambrose's faction, and had apparently decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He would wait out the storm at his estate in far-off Oxyrhynchos.

Antonina thought about that nobleman, as her maid helped her into the armor. Not about him so much-she didn't even know the man's name-but about what he represented. He was not alone in his actions. A very large part of Alexandria's Greek nobility had done likewise.

By the time she was buckling on the scabbard which held her cleaver, a task for which the maid was no use at all, she had made her decision. Two decisions, actually. Possibly three.

First, there would be no repercussions against the nobles who had stepped aside and remained neutral in the battle. Not even those who had fled outright. She was simply trying to establish firm imperial control over the city. Many-most-of the orthodox Greek nobility, especially in Alexandria, would remain hostile to the dynasty no matter what she did. So long as that hostility remain muted-a thing of whispers in the salons, rather than riots in the streets-she would ignore it.

Second-a lesser decision flowing from the first-she would instruct Dubazes to make sure the palace was in pristine condition when she left to take up her new residence at the Prefect's palace. The new Prefect had been officially installed the previous evening. There had been no opposition. His predecessor, along with the deposed Patriarch Paul, had fled to the military quarter at Nicopolis to take refuge with Ambrose and his Army of Egypt.

She snorted quietly. When the nobleman, whoever he was, eventually crept back into his palace, he would be surprised to discover it had not been ransacked and vandalized. The discovery would not dispose him any more favorably to the imperial authority, of course. But the calm certitude behind that little act of self-discipline might help strengthen his resolve to keep his head down.

Good enough.

Finally, a small thing, but-

She turned to her maid, and examined the girl. Under that scrutiny, the maid lowered her head timidly.

Egyptian. Not twenty years of age. From the Fayum, I'm willing to bet. Her Greek is good, but that accent is unmistakable.

'What is your name?' she asked.

'Koutina,' said the maid.

'You are Monophysite?'

Koutina raised her eyes, startled. Antonina did not miss the fear hidden there.

She waved her hand reassuringly. 'It means nothing to me, Koutina. I simply-' Want to know