Destiny's shield

Germanicus' frown deepened. 'Then who-?'

'Me,' said Belisarius. 'Me, and whatever troops we can scrape up.' He scratched his chin. 'I think we can spare five or six thousand men from the Army of Syria, along with my own bucellarii.'

'I can give you two thousand cataphracts,' interjected Sittas. He glanced at Germanicus.

The Illyrian army commander winced. 'I can probably spare five hundred. No more than that, I'm afraid. There's bound to be trouble with the northern barbarians within the next year. The Malwa will be spreading their gold with a lavish hand.'

Hermogenes finished counting on his fingers and looked up.

'That doesn't give you much of an army, Belisarius. You've got, what-a thousand cataphracts, after you give five hundred to Antonina?'

Belisarius nodded.

Hermogenes blew out his cheeks. 'Plus two thousand from Sittas and five hundred from Germanicus. That's three and a half thousand heavy cavalry. The Army of Syria can probably give you three or four thousand infantry and a couple of thousand cavalry. But the cavalry will be light horse archers, not cataphract lancers.'

'Ten thousand men, at the most,' concluded Germanicus. 'As he says, that's not much of an army.'

Belisarius shrugged. 'It's what we've got.'

'I'm not happy at the idea of Belisarius personally leading this army,' stated Chrysopolis. 'He's the Empire's strategos. He should really stay here in the capital.'

'Nonsense!' barked Justinian. For the first time since the meeting began, he too broke into a grin. And, like that of his wife's, the expression was utterly humorless.

'You want an alliance with Persia, don't you?' he demanded. 'They won't be happy at our counter-offer of ten thousand men. But Belisarius' reputation will make up the difference.' Now, a bit of humor crept into that ravaged face. 'Stop frowning, Chrysopolis. I can see your sour face as if I still had eyes.'

He leaned forward, gripping the armrests of his chair. His head scanned the entire circle of advisers. For just a fleeting moment, everyone would have sworn Justinian could actually see them.

'I made that man a general,' said the former emperor. 'It's one of the few decisions I made that I've never regretted.'

He leaned back in his seat. 'The Persians will be delighted. Believe it.'

Chapter 3

The next morning, when the Empress Regent gave Baresmanas the Roman response to Persia's proposal, he was delighted. He had hoped for a larger army, true. But neither he nor Emperor Khusrau had really expected the Romans to send them forty thousand troops.

The Roman generosity in not demanding territorial concessions in the borderlands also pleased him immensely. That was quite unexpected.

But, best of all-Belisarius.

Not every member of the Persian delegation shared his attitude-including his own wife, the Lady Maleka. As soon as Baresmanas returned to the small palace in which the Persians had been housed, right in the middle of the imperial complex, she strode into the main salon, scowling fiercely.

'I do not approve,' she told her husband, very forcefully. 'We should not be currying favor from these wretched Roman mongrels, as if we were lowborn beggars.'

Baresmanas ignored her. He stood before the flames burning in the salon's fireplace, warming his hands from the chill of an April morning.

'I do not approve!' repeated Lady Maleka.

Baresmanas sighed, turned away from the fire. 'The Emperor approves,' he said mildly.

'Khusrau is but a boy!'

'He most certainly is not,' replied her husband firmly. 'True, he is a young man. But he is in every respect as fine an Emperor as ever sat the Aryan throne. Do not doubt it, wife.'

Lady Maleka scowled. 'Even so- He is too preoccupied with the Malwa invasion! He forgets our glorious Aryan heritage!'

Her husband bit off a sharp retort. Unlike his wife, Baresmanas was well-educated. A scholar, actually, which was unusual for a sahrdaran. Lady Maleka, on the other hand, was a perfect specimen of their class. Like all Persian high noblewomen, she was literate. But it was a skill which she had never utilized once she reached adulthood. She much preferred to learn her history seated on rich cushions at their palace in Ctesiphon, listening to bards recounting the epics of the Aryans.

Baresmanas studied the angry face of his wife, trying to think of a way to explain reality that would penetrate her prejudiced ignorance.

The truth of history, he knew, was quite different from her fantasy version of it. The Iranians who ruled Persia and Central Asia had originated, like their Scythian brethren, from the steppes of Asia. They, too, had been nomadic barbarians once. Over a millennium ago, the Aryan tribes had marched south from the steppes, in their great epic of conquest. The westward-moving tribes had become known as the Iranians and had created the glory of the ancient Medes and Persians. Their eastward-bound cousins had conquered northern India and created the Vedic culture which eventually permeated the entire sub-continent.

And then, having done so, both branches of the Aryans had invented a new history for themselves. A history full of airy legends and grandiose claims, and precious little in the way of fact.

Myths and fables, grown up in the feudal soil of the east. The real power of the Iranians, now as before, lay on the Persian plateau and the great rich lands of Mesopotamia. But the Aryans-the nobility, at least-chose to remember the legends of the northeastern steppes.

And then, he thought sourly, remember them upside down. They don't remember the military strength of barbarian horsemen. Only the myth of pure blood, and divine ancestry.

Studying his wife, Baresmanas recognized the impossibility of penetrating her prejudices.

So be it. The Aryans had other customs, too.

'Obey your husband, wife,' he commanded. 'And your Emperor.'

She opened her mouth.

'Do it.'

Lady Maleka bowed her head. Sullenly, she stalked from the room.

Baresmanas lowered himself onto a couch near the fire. He stared into the flames. The hot glow seemed to lurk within his dark eyes, as if he saw a different conflagration there.

Which, indeed, he did. The memory of a fire called the battle of Mindouos. Where, three years before, a Roman general had shattered the Persian army. Outfoxed them, trapped then, slaughtered them-even captured the Persian camp.

Belisarius.

Baresmanas had been at that battle. So had his children, in the Persian camp.

He looked away from the fire, wincing.

His children would never have been at Mindouos had Baresmanas not brought them there. He, too, for all his scholarship, had lapsed into Aryan haughtiness. It was the long-standing custom of noble Persians to bring their families to the field of battle. Displaying, to the enemy and all the world, their arrogant confidence in Aryan invincibility.

His wife had refused to come, pleading her health. (Not from the enemy, but from the heat of the Syrian desert.) But his children had come, avidly-his daughter as much as his son. Avid to watch their famous father, second-in-command to Firuz, destroy the insolent Romans.

Baresmanas sighed. He reached up with his left hand and caressed his right shoulder. The shoulder ached, as always, and he could feel the ridged scar tissue under the silk of his tunic.

A Roman lance had put that scar there. At Mindouos. Baresmanas, like all the charging noble lancers, had been trapped in the center. Trapped, by the cunning of the Roman commander; and, then, hammered under by the force of his counter-blow.