The Dance of Time b-6

by Eric Flint

  Thereafter, whatever they might have muttered under their breath, none of the soldiers in the hospital protested openly when they were instructed to dig real latrines, away from the tents-and use them. Nor did they complain when they were ordered to help completely immobilized soldiers use them as well.

  * * *

  By the end of the fifth day, Anna was confident that her authority in the hospital was well enough established. She spent a goodly portion of those days daydreaming about the pleasures of wearing more suitable apparel, as she made her slow way through the ranks of wounded men in the swarm of tents. But she knew full well that the sweat that seemed to saturate her was one of the prices she would have to pay. Lady Saronites, wife of Calopodius the Blind, daughter of the illustrious family of the Melisseni, was a figure of power and majesty and authority-and had the noble gowns to prove it, even if they were soiled and frayed. Young Anna, all of nineteen years old, wearing a sari, would have had none at all.

  By the sixth day, as she had feared, what was left of the money she had brought with her from Constantinople was almost gone. So, gathering her now-filthy robes in two small but determined hands, she marched her way back into the city of Chabahari. By now, at least, she had learned the name of the city's commander.

  It took her half the day to find the man, in the taberna where he was reputed to spend most of his time. By the time she did, as she had been told, he was already half-drunk.

  "Garrison troops," muttered Illus as they entered the tent that served the city's officers for their entertainment. The tent was filthy, as well as crowded with officers and their whores.

  Anna found the commandant of the garrison in a corner, with a young half-naked girl perched on his lap. After taking half the day to find the man, it only took her a few minutes to reason with him and obtain the money she needed to keep the Service in operation.

  Most of those few minutes were spent explaining, in considerable detail, exactly what she needed. Most of that, in specifying tools and artifacts-more shovels to dig more latrines; pots for boiling water; more fabric for making more tents, because the ones they had were too crowded. And so forth.

  She spent a bit of time, at the end, specifying the sums of money she would need.

  "Twenty solidi-a day." She nodded at an elderly wounded soldier whom she had brought with her along with Illus. "That's Zeno. He's literate. He's the Service's accountant in Chabahari. You can make all the arrangements through him."

  The garrison's commandant then spent a minute explaining to Anna, also in considerable detail-mostly anatomical-what she could do with the tools, artifacts and money she needed.

  Illus' face was very strained, by the end. Half with fury, half with apprehension-this man was no petty officer to be pounded with fists. But Anna herself sat through the garrison commander's tirade quite calmly. When he was done, she did not need more than a few seconds to reason with him further and bring him to see the error of his position.

  "My husband is Calopodius the Blind. I will tell him what you have said to me, and he will place the words in his next Dispatch. You will be a lucky man if all that happens to you is that General Belisarius has you executed."

  She left the tent without waiting to hear his response. By the time she reached the tent's entrance, the garrison commander's face was much whiter than the tent fabric and he was gasping for breath.

  The next morning, a chest containing a hundred solidi was brought to the hospital and placed in Zeno's care. The day after that, the first of the tools and artifacts began arriving.

  Four weeks later, when Calopodius' note finally arrived, the mortality rate in the hospital was less than half what it had been when Anna arrived. She was almost sorry to leave.

  In truth, she might not have left at all, except by then she was confident that Zeno was quite capable of managing the entire service as well as its finances.

  "Don't steal anything," she warned him, as she prepared to leave.

  Zeno's face quirked with a rueful smile. "I wouldn't dare risk the Wife's anger."

  She laughed, then; and found herself wondering through all the days of their slow oar-driven travel to Barbaricum why those words had brought her no anger at all.

  And, each night, she took out Calopodius' letter and wondered at it also. Anna had lived with anger and bitterness for so long-"so long," at least, to a nineteen-year-old girl-that she was confused by its absence. She was even more confused by the little glow of warmth which the last words in the letter gave her, each time she read them.

  "You're a strange woman," Illus told her, as the great battlements and cannons of Barbaricum loomed on the horizon.

  There was no way to explain. "Yes," was all she said.

  * * *

  The first thing she did upon arriving at Barbaricum was march into the telegraph office. If the officers in command thought there was anything peculiar about a young Greek noblewoman dressed in the finest and filthiest garments they had ever seen, they kept it to themselves. Perhaps rumors of "the Wife" had preceded her.

  "Send a telegram immediately," she commanded. "To my husband, Calopodius the Blind."

  They hastened to comply. The message was brief:

  Address medical care and sanitation in next dispatch STOP Firmly STOP

  The Iron Triangle

  When Calopodius received the telegram-and he received it immediately, because his post was in the Iron Triangle's command and communication center-the first words he said as soon as the telegraph operator finished reading it to him were:

  "God, I'm an idiot!"

  Belisarius had heard the telegram also. In fact, all the officers in the command center had heard, because they had been waiting with an ear cocked. By now, the peculiar journey of Calopodius' wife was a source of feverish gossip in the ranks of the entire army fighting off the Malwa siege in the Punjab. What the hell is that girl doing, anyway? being only the most polite of the speculations.

  The general sighed and rolled his eyes. Then, closed them. It was obvious to everyone that he was reviewing all of Calopodius' now-famous Dispatches in his mind.

  "We're both idiots," he muttered. "We've maintained proper medical and sanitation procedures here, sure enough. But. ."

  His words trailed off. His second-in-command, Maurice, filled in the rest.

  "She must have passed through half the invasion staging posts along the way. Garrison troops, garrison officers-with the local butchers as the so-called 'surgeons.' God help us, I don't even want to think. ."

  "I'll write it immediately," said Calopodius.

  Belisarius nodded. "Do so. And I'll give you some choice words to include." He cocked his head at Maurice, smiling crookedly. "What do you think? Should we resurrect crucifixion as a punishment?"

  Maurice shook his head. "Don't be so damned flamboyant. Make the punishment fit the crime. Surgeons who do not boil their instruments will be boiled alive. Officers who do not see to it that proper latrines are maintained will be buried alive in them. That sort of thing."

  Calopodius was already seated at the desk where he dictated his Dispatches and the chapters of the History. So was his scribe, pen in hand.

  "I'll add a few nice little flourishes," his young voice said confidently. "This strikes me as a good place for grammar and rhetoric."

  Chapter 12

  The Thar Desert

  Near the Iron Triangle

  Three days later, at sunrise, Belisarius and a small escort rode into the Thar Desert. "The Great Indian Desert," as it was also sometimes called.

  They didn't go far. No farther than they'd been able to travel in the three days since they'd left the Triangle. Partly, that was because Belisarius' bodyguards were by now pestering him almost constantly regarding his security. They hadn't been happy at all when he'd informed them he planned to leave the Triangle on a week-long scouting expedition of his own. The bodyguards had the not-unreasonable attitude that scouting expeditions should be done by scouts, not commanders-in-chief.
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br />   Belisarius didn't disagree with them, as a matter of general principle. Nor was this expedition one of the periodically calculated risks he took, proving to his men that he was willing to share their dangers and hardships. It was, in fact, purely and simply a scouting expedition-and not one in which he expected to encounter any enemies.

  Why would he, after all? The Thar was enemy enough, to any human. With the exception of some small nomadic tribes, no one ventured into it willingly. There was no logical reason for the Malwa to be sending patrols into its interior. In any event, Belisarius had been careful to enter the desert much farther south than the most advanced Malwa contingents.

  Aide wasn't any happier at the situation than the bodyguards were.

  This is purely stupid. Why are you bothering, anyway? You already crossed the Thar, once before, when you were fleeing India. And don't try to deny it! I was there, remember?

  Belisarius ignored him, for a moment. His eyes continued to range the landscape, absorbing it as best he could.

  True, he had crossed this desert once-albeit a considerable distance to the south. Still, what he could see here was not really any different from what he'd seen years earlier. The Thar desert, like most deserts, is much of a sameness.

  Yes, I remember-but my memories were those of the man who crossed this desert then. One man, alone, on a camel rather than a horse, and with plenty of water and supplies. I needed to see it again, to really bring back all the memories.

  I could have done that for you, Aide pointed out peevishly. One of the crystal's seemingly-magical powers was an ability to bring back any of Belisarius' memories-while Aide had been with him, at least-as vividly as if they'd just happened.

  Belisarius shook his head slightly. It's still not the same. I need to feel the heat again, on my own skin. Gauge it, just as I gauge the dryness and the barrenness.

  He gave Abbu, riding just behind him to his left, a little jerk of the head to summon him forward.

  "What do you think?" he asked the leader of his Arab scouts.

  Abbu's grizzle-bearded countenance glared at the desert. "It is nothing, next to the Empty Quarter!"

  Bedouin honor having been satisfied, he shrugged. "Still, it is a real desert. No oases, even, from what I've been told."

  He's right, Aide chimed in. There aren't any. The desert isn't as bad as it will become a millennia and a half from now, when the first real records were maintained. The Thar is a fairly recent desert. Still, as the old bandit says, it is indeed a real desert. And no artesian wells, either.

  Belisarius mused on the problem, for a minute or so.

  Could we dig our own wells, then?

  I could find the spots for you. Very likely ones, at least. The records are good, and the aquifers would not have changed much. But there are no guarantees, and. . In a desert this bad, if even one of my estimates proves wrong, it could be disastrous.

  Belisarius was considerably more sanguine than Aide, on that score. He had found many times that Aide's superhuman intellect, while it often floundered with matters involving human emotions, rarely failed when it came to a straightforward task of deduction based on a mass of empirical data.

  Still, he saw no reason to take unnecessary chances.

  "Abbu, if I send you and some of your men through this desert-a dozen or two, whatever you wish-along with a chart indicating the likely spots to dig wells, could you find them?"

  Abbu's expression was sour. "I don't read charts easily," he grumbled. "Detest the newfangled things."

  Belisarius suppressed a smile. What Abbu said was true enough-the part about detesting the things, at any rate-but the scout leader was perfectly capable of reading them well enough. Even if he weren't, he had several young Arabs who could read and interpret maps and charts as easily as any Greek. What was really involved here was more the natural dislike of an old bedouin at the prospect of digging a number of wells in a desert.

  You'd be an idiot to trust him to do it properly, anyway. If you want good wells made-ones that you can depend on, weeks or months later-you'd do better to use Greeks.

  Teaching your grandfather to suck eggs again? I just want Abbu to find the spots. I'll send some of my bucellarii with him to do the work. Thracians will be even better than Greeks.

  After he explained the plan to Abbu, the scout leader was mollified. "Easy, then," he announced. "Take us three weeks."

  "No longer?"

  Abbu squinted at the desert. "Maybe a month. The Thar is three hundred miles across, you say?"

  Not really, Aide chimed in. Not today, before the worst of the desiccation has happened. Say, two hundred miles of real desert, with a fifty-mile fringe. We're still in the fringe here, really.

  "Figure two hundred miles of real desert, Abbu, with another fifty on either side like this terrain."

  The old Arab ran fingers through his beard. "And you want us to use horses. Not camels?"

  Belisarius nodded.

  "Then, as I say, three, maybe four weeks. Coming back will be quick, with the wells already dug."

  Abbu cocked his head a little, looking at Belisarius through narrowed eyes.

  "What rashness are you contemplating, General?"

  Belisarius pointed with his chin toward the east. "When the time comes-if the time comes-I may want to lead an expedition across that desert. To Ajmer."

  "Ajmer?" The Arab chief's eyes almost literally bulged. "You are mad! Ajmer is the main city of the Rajputs. It would take you ten thousand men-maybe fifteen-to seize the city. Then, you would be lucky to hold it against the counterattack."

  He stretched out his hand and flipped it, simultaneously indicating the desert with the gesture and dismissing everything else. "You cannot-can not, General, not even you-get more than a thousand men across that desert. Not even with wells dug. Not even in this fine rabi season-and we'll soon be in the heat of garam. With camels, maybe two thousand. But with horses? A thousand at most!"

  "I wasn't actually planning to take a thousand," Belisarius said mildly. "I think five hundred of my bucellarii will suffice. With an additional two hundred of your scouts, as outriders."

  "Against Rajputs?" Fiercely, Abbu shook his head. "Not a chance, General. Not with only five hundred of your best Thracians. Not even with splendid Arab scouts. We would not get within sight of Ajmer before we were overrun. Not all the Rajputs are in the Deccan with Damodara, you know. Many are not."

  Belisarius nodded placidly. "A great many, according to my spies. I'm counting on that, in fact. I need at least fifteen thousand Rajputs to be in or around Ajmer when we arrive. Twenty would be better."

  Abbu rolled his eyes. "What lunacy is this? You are expecting the Rajputs to become changed men? Lambs, where once they were lions?"

  Belisarius chuckled. "Oh, not that, certainly. I'd have no use for Rajput lambs. But. . yes, Abbu. If I do this-which I may well not, since right now it's only a possibility-then I expect the Rajputs to have changed."

  He reined his horse around. "More than that, I will not say. This is all speculation, in any event. Let's get back to the Triangle."

  * * *

  When they returned to the Triangle, Belisarius gave three orders.

  The first summoned Ashot from the Sukkur gorge. He was no longer needed there, in command of the Roman forces, now that the Persians had established firm control over the area.

  "I'll want him in charge of the bucellarii, of course," he told Maurice, "since you'll have to remain behind."

  The bucellarii were Belisarius' picked force of Thracian cataphracts, armored heavy cavalrymen. A private army, in essence, that he'd maintained for years. A large one, too, numbering by now seven thousand men. He could afford it, since the immense loot from the past years of successful campaigns-first, against the Persians; and then, in alliance with them against the Malwa-had made Belisarius the richest person in the Roman Empire except for Justinian and Theodora.

  Maurice had been the leader of those bucellarii since they were first forme
d, over ten years earlier. But, today, he was essentially the second-in-command of the entire Roman army in the Punjab.

  Maurice grunted. "Ashot'll do fine. I still say it's a crazy idea."

  "It may never happen, anyway," Belisarius pointed out. "It's something of a long shot, depending on several factors over which we have no control at all."

  Maurice scowled. "So what? 'Long shot' and 'no control' are the two phrases that best describe this war to begin with."

  Rightly said! chimed in Aide.

  Belisarius gave the crystal the mental equivalent of a very cross-eyed look. If I recall correctly, you were the one who started the war in the first place.

  Oh, nonsense! I just pointed out the inevitable.

  * * *

  The second order, which he issued immediately thereafter, summoned Agathius from Mesopotamia.

  "We don't need him there either, any more," he explained to Maurice.

  "No, we don't. Although I hate to think of what chaos those damn Persians will create in our logistics without Agathius to crack the whip over them. Still. ."

  The chiliarch ran fingers through his grizzled beard. "We could use him here, better. If you go haring off on this preposterous mad dash of yours, I'll have to command the troops here. Bloody fighting, that'll be, all across the front."

  "Bloodier than anything you've ever seen," Belisarius agreed. "Or I've ever seen-or anyone's ever seen. The two greatest armies ever assembled in history hammering at each other across not more than twenty miles of front. And the Malwa will hammer, Maurice. You can be sure that Link will give that order before the monster departs. Whatever else, it will want this Roman army kept in its cage, and not able to come after it."

  Maurice's grunted chuckle even had a bit of real humor. Not much, of course. "But no fancy maneuvers required. Nothing that really needs the crooked brain of Belisarius. Just stout, simple-minded Maurice of Thrace, like the centurion of the Bible. Saying to one, come, and he cometh. Saying to another, go, and he goeth."

  Belisarius smiled, but said nothing.