Destiny's shield

As she marched through the streets, Antonina was struck by how often her husband's name made up the cheer coming from the throats of the Greek residents. The Egyptians, too, chanted his name. But they were as likely to call out her own or the Empress Theodora's.

Among the Greeks, one name only:

Belisarius! Belisarius! Belisarius!

She took no personal umbrage in that chant. If nothing else, it was obvious that the cheer was the Greeks' way of approving her, as well. She was Belisarius' wife, and if the Greek upper crust had often sneered at the general for marrying such a disreputable woman, it was clear as day that the Greek commoners lining the streets of Alexandria were not sneering at him in the least.

The Greeks had found their own way to support the dynasty, she realized. Belisarius might be a Thracian himself, and might have married an Egyptian, and put his half-Egyptian, half-who-knows-what bastard stepson on the throne, but he was still a Greek. In the way which mattered most to that proudest of Rome's many proud nations.

Whipped the Persians, didn't he? Just like he'll whip these Malwa dogs. Whoever they are.

Hermogenes leaned over to her, whispering: 'The word of Anatha's already spread.'

Antonina nodded. She had just gotten the word herself, the day before. The semaphore network was still half-finished, but enough of it had been completed to bring the news to Antioch-and from there, by a swift keles courier ship, to Alexandria.

There had been nothing personal, addressed to her, in the report. But she had recognized her husband's turn of phrase in the wording of it. And had seen his shrewd mind at work, in the way he emphasized the decisive role of Greek cataphracts in winning the great victory over Malwa.

That word, too, had obviously spread. She could read it in the way Greek shopkeepers grinned, as they cheered her army onward, and the way Greek sailors hoisted their drinking cups in salute to the passing soldiers.

Thank you, husband. Your great victory has given me a multitude of small ones.

The fortress at Nicopolis where the Army of Egypt lay waiting was one of the Roman Empire's mightiest. Not surprising. The garrison was critical to the Empire's rule. Egyptian grain fed the Roman world-Constantinople depended upon it almost entirely-and the grain was shipped through Alex-andria's port. Since Augustus, every Roman Emperor had seen to it that Egypt was secure. For centuries, now, the fort at Nicopolis had been strengthened, expanded, modified, built up, and strengthened yet again.

'We'll never take it by storm,' stated Ashot. 'Not with the forces we've got. Even grenades'd be like pebbles, against those walls.'

He looked up at the battlements, where a mass of soldiers could be seen standing guard.

'Be pure suicide for sappers, trying to set charges.'

Ashot, along with Antonina and Hermogenes and the other top officers of the expedition, was observing the fortress from three hundred yards away. Their vantage point was another of the great intersections which dotted Alexandria itself. Very similar to the one at the city's center, if not quite as large, down to the tetrastylon.

Originally, the fortress had been built outside the city's limits. But Alexandria had spread, over the centuries. Today, the city's population numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The fortress had long since been engulfed within the suburb called Nico-polis.

It was a bit jarring, actually, the way that massive stone structure-so obviously built for war-rose up out of a sea of small shops and mudbrick apartment buildings. Comical, almost. In the way that a majestic lion might seem comical, if it were surrounded by chittering mice.

Except there were no chittering mice that day. The shops were boarded up, the apartments vacant. Nicopolis' populace had fled, the moment news came that Antonina was advancing against Ambrose. All morning, a stream of people had poured out of the suburb, bearing what valuables they owned in carts or haversacks.

Antonina turned to Hermogenes. 'Do you agree?'

Hermogenes nodded instantly. 'Ashot's right. I know that fortress. I was stationed in it for a few months, shortly after I joined the army. You can't believe how thick those stone walls are until you see them.'

He twisted in his saddle and looked back at Menander.

'Could you take it with siege guns? You're the only one of us who's observed them in action.'

Seeing himself the focus of attention, the shy young cataphract tensed. But there was no faltering or hesitation in his reply.

'Yes, I could, if we had them. But John told me just yesterday that he doesn't expect to produce any for months. Even then, it'd take weeks to reduce those walls.'

Very shyly, now: 'I don't know as Antonina can afford to wait that long.'

'Absolutely not,' she said firmly. 'The longer this drags on, the more likely it is that revolt will start brewing in other parts of Alexandria. The rest of Egypt, for that matter. Paul has plenty of supporters in every one of the province's Greek towns, all the way up to Ombos and Syene, just below the First Cataract. Antinoopolis and Oxyrhynchos are hotbeds of disloyalty. Not to mention-'

She fell silent. The top officers surrounding her knew the strategic plan which she and Belisarius had worked out, months earlier, to carry the fight to Malwa's exposed southern flank. But the more junior officers didn't. Antonina had no reason to doubt their loyalty, but there was still the risk of loose talk being picked up by Malwa spies.

So she bit her tongue and finished the thought only in her mind:

Not to mention that I don't have weeks-months! — to waste in Alexandria. I've got to get to the Red Sea, and join forces with the Axumites. By early spring of next year, at the latest.

And the next one, full of anguish: Or my husband, if he's not already, will be a dead man.

But nothing of that anguish showed, in her face. Simply calm resolution.

'No, gentlemen, we've got to win this little civil war quickly.'

Ashot tugged his beard and growled. 'I'm telling you, it'll be pure slaughter if we try to storm that place.'

Antonina waved him down. 'Relax, Ashot. I'm not crazy. I have no intention of wasting lives in a frontal attack. But I don't think it's necessary.'

Hermogenes, too, was tugging his beard.

'A siege'll take months. A year, probably, unless we get siege guns. That fortress has enough provisions to last that long, easily. And they've got two wells inside the walls.'

Antonina shook her head. 'I wasn't thinking of a siege, either.'

Seeing the confusion in the faces around her, Antonina had to restrain a sigh.

Generals.

'You're approaching the situation upside down,' she stated. 'This is not really a military problem. It's political.'

To Ashot: 'Weren't you the one who was telling me, just yesterday, that the reason Ambrose couldn't intervene while we were suppressing the mob was because he needed the day to win over his troops?'

The commander of her Thracian bucellarii nodded.

She grinned. 'Well, he's had a day. Just how solid do you think he's made himself? With his troops?'

Frowning.

Generals.

She pointed at the fortress. 'How long have those men-the soldiers, I mean-been stationed here? Hermogenes?'

The young merarch shrugged.

'Years. Most of the garrison-the troops, anyway-spend their entire term of service in Egypt. Even units that get called out for a campaign elsewhere are always rotated back here.'

'That's what I thought. Now-another question. Where do those men live? Not in the fortress, I'm sure. Years of service, you said. That means wives, children, families. Outside businesses, probably. Half of those soldiers-at least half-will have married into local families. They'll have