Destiny's shield

your loyal-ties. An Egyptian Monophysite from the Fayum. Yes.

She switched from Greek to the girl's native tongue. Antonina's own Coptic was still fluent, even if her long residence in Constantinople had given it a bit of an accent.

'I'll be leaving here today, Koutina. My regular maid will not recover from her illness soon. In fact, I will be sending her back to Constantinople to be with her family. So I will need a new maid. Would you like the job?'

Koutina was still staring at her uncertainly. The question about her religious loyalties had obviously unsettled the girl. Paul's persecution had been savage.

'I would prefer a Monophysite, Koutina.' She smiled, patting the heavy cuirass. 'I'm not wearing this grotesque thing for protection from heretics, you know.'

Koutina began to return the smile. 'You are very famous,' she said softly. 'I was frightened when you came.' Her eyes flitted to the blade buckled to Antonina's waist. 'We all heard about the Cleaver, even here in Alexandria.'

'It has never been used against any but traitors.'

'I know,' said Koutina, nodding. 'Still-'

Suddenly, all hesitation fled. 'I would be delighted.' She was beaming now. 'It would be so exciting! You are going to fight the Malwa, everyone says so. Can I come there too?'

It was Antonina's turn to be startled. She had only intended to keep the girl in her service during her stay in Alexandria. But now, seeing the eagerness in Koutina's face, she began to reconsider. The young Egyptian was obviously not worried about the risks involved. Boredom, not danger, was the girl's lifelong enemy.

It was an enemy which Antonina herself well remembered, from her own girlhood. The grinding, relentless, tedious labor of a woman born into Egypt's poor masses. Koutina had probably left the Fayum seeking a better life in Alexandria-only to find that she had exchanged the toil of a peasant for the drudgery of a domestic servant.

She could not refuse that eager face. True, the girl might find her death, in Antonina's company. But she would not be-bored.

And besides, I need servants whose loyalty I can absolutely trust. Dubazes is not enough. I am certain the Malwa have infiltrated spies into my expedition. I must be certain they don't penetrate my own household.

Koutina, from the Fayum. Yes. I know that breed. The Malwa will have nothing to offer her except money, and I-

She laughed. Belisarius had not turned over all of the fortune he garnered in India to finance Shakuntala's rebellion. Nor had he given more than half of his war booty to his cataphracts.

And I am richer than any Malwa spymaster.

She grinned. 'Done, Koutina. I will pay you well, too. Much better than your former employer.'

Koutina's expression was an odd mixture of emotions. Pleasure at the thought of a sudden increases in wages; anger at the thought of her former employer. The man had been a cheapskate, obviously. And had combined that miserliness, Antonina was quite certain, with frequent solicitations. Koutina was pretty as well as young.

Smiling: 'And I won't be rattling your door latch, either, late at night, trying to get into your room.'

'That bastard!' hissed Koutina.

It was time to go. Time to crush a military rebellion. But Antonina had long since learned to savor all her victories-small ones, as well as large. So she took the moment to exchange a warm look with her new servant. Binding loyalty with her eyes, far more than her purse.

The maid broke the moment.

'You must go, you must go!' Koutina began bustling Antonina out of the room, fussing over the scabbard which held the cleaver. 'Ambrose must be brought to heel!'

Out into the corridor, bustling her mistress along. Fussing, now, with the straps that held the cuirass. 'He probably won't fight you, anyway. His soldiers will be blinded by the sun, shining off your brass boobs. You must be a giantess, they're so huge! They'll be terrified and run away!'

The stern-faced officers who awaited her in the entryway to the palace were startled, then. Startled-and mightily heartened. Appearing before them was the leader of their grim and perilous mission-a woman, and small at that-howling with laughter. As gay a laughter as they had ever heard. At any time, much less on the morning of a battle.

They took courage from the thought. Stern faces grew sterner still.

And Antonina kept laughing, and laughing, all the way out to her horse waiting in the courtyard. She wasn't sure what amused her most-the thought of her brass breasts, which made her laugh, or the way her laughter so obviously boosted the morale of her men.

Either way, either way. Doesn't matter. Out of small victories come great ones.

As her army marched through the streets of Alexandria, heading toward the suburb of Nicopolis where the Roman garrison had been stationed since the early days of imperial rule, Antonina took the opportunity to assess the city's mood. The streets were lined with people, watching the procession. Most of them were Egyptians and poor Greeks. Both were cheering-the Egyptians with loud enthusiasm, the Greeks with more restraint.

Word had already spread through the city that Theodosius had been installed as the new Patriarch. That news had been greeted by the Egyptian Mono-physites with wild acclaim. Theodosius was one of their own. True, he was an adherent of the Severan school, whose moderate and compromising attitude toward the official Church was out of step with the more dogmatic tradition of Egyptian Monophysitism. But the Egyptian residents of Alexandria did not look on these things the same way as the fanatic Mono-physite monks of the desert. They had had enough of street brawls, and persecution. Doctrinal fine points be damned. The Empress Theodora was one of them, and she had placed another in the Church of St. Michael.

Good enough-more than good enough! — to declare a holiday.

The Greek residents who watched Antonina pass-and cheered her on-took less pleasure in the news. Many of Alexandria's Greek population, of course, had adopted Monophysitism themselves. All of the religious leaders of that dogma were Greek, in fact, even if they found their popular base in the Coptic masses of Egypt. But most Greeks, even poor ones, had remained true to orthodoxy.

Still, they were not nobles. Tailors, bakers, linen-makers, glassblowers, sailors, papyrus workers-almost all the Mediterranean world's paper was made in Alexandria-shopkeepers, merchants, domestic servants, fishermen, grain handlers: the list was well nigh endless. Some were prosperous, some merely scraped by; but none were rich. And all of them, even here in Alexandria, had come to accept the general opinion of the Roman Empire's great masses with regard to the imperial power.

That opinion had crystallized, in Constantinople itself, with the defeat of the Nika insurrection. From there, carried by the sailors and merchants who weaved Roman society into a single cloth, the opinion had spread to every corner of the Empire. From the Danube to Elephantine, from Cyrene to Tre-bizond, the great millions of Rome's citizens had heard, discussed, quarreled, decided.

The dynasty which ruled the Empire was their dynasty.

It never occurred to them, of course, to think of the dynasty as a 'people's dynasty.' Emperors were emperors; common folk were common folk. The one ruled the other. Law of nature.

But they did think of it as theirs. Not because the dynasty came from their own ranks-which it did, and they knew it, and took pleasure in the knowing-so much as they were satisfied that the dynasty understood them; and based its power on their support; and kept at least one eye open on behalf of their needs and interests.

Common folk were common folk, emperors were emperors, and never the twain shall meet. That still leaves the difference between a good emperor and a bad one-a difference which common folk measure with a very different stick than nobility.

The taxes had been lowered, and made more equitable. The haughtiest nobles and the most corrupt bureaucrats had been humbled, always a popular thing, among those over whom the elite lords it-even executed. Wildly popular, that. Stability had been restored, and with it the conditions which those people needed to feed their families.

And, finally, there was Belisarius.