by David Drake
Not easy defeat, not quick defeat, but a defeat which was as sure as the sunrise. Even now, as he watched, the Ye-tai in the stern were finally overwhelmed. Screeching with triumph, the Arab pirates began swarming forward, rolling up the Ye-tai lines on either side of the ship.
Quickly, Belisarius assessed the situation at hand. The pirate assault at the bow had ceased. Utterly discouraged by their horrendous (and futile) casualties, the surviving Arabs had retreated back to their own vessel and had released their grappling hooks. About half the crew was still alive, but they were starting to row their craft toward the stern of the Indian vessel, hoping to find an easier way aboard.
Then, suddenly, the galley began wallowing in the waves. The pirates shrieked their fury and hastened to bring their craft back under control.
Ousanas had added another steersman to his list.
The cataphracts roared their own triumphant fury. The sarwen, more practical-minded, slew another couple of pirates with well-placed javelin casts. So did Eon. For his part, Ousanas waited until the pirates selected a new steersman. Three seconds later, the Arabs had to begin the process anew. It was soon obvious that volunteers were short.
Belisarius bellowed. Not words, just a thundering roar to catch the attention of his little cohort. It was difficult: the victorious cries of the Arabs and the despairing screams of the Ye-tai had produced a bedlam of sheer noise which engulfed the entire vessel.
When he had their attention, Belisarius simply pointed to the stern. No more was needed. In the cramped quarters of the deck, no subtle tactics were possible. Nor was there time to begin the counter-attack with a volley of arrows and javelins. The Ye-tai were on the verge of utter collapse. The barbarians had managed to patch together a semblance of a line amidships, just aft of the mainmast. But a wave of pirates was swarming over them.
There was neither place nor time, now, for any tactics but pure shock. Concentrated slaughter.
Belisarius led the way. Within a second or two, the other Romans and the Ethiopians were charging alongside him. The nine men formed a single line stretching across the entire width of the ship. The spacing was actually too close, but before Belisarius could order a change, Ousanas took the initiative. The dawazz grabbed Eon by his kilt and jerked him back. A moment later, his sharp bark at Garmat caused the adviser to likewise fall back.
Eon protested bitterly. Ousanas slapped him atop the head-there was not a trace of humor in that blow-and criticized the prince savagely.
Even though Belisarius could basically understand Ge’ez, aided by the jewel, he was unable to grasp every word which Ousanas spoke. But there was no need. The general himself, in battles past, had spoken similar phrases to young soldiers. Although never with quite such vigor and profanity.
Fucking worthless toddler. Grow up. This no time for children in front line. Make self useful. Drooling infant. Spear somebody on other side. Cretin child. Instead of getting in way of veterans. Best cataphracts and sarwen in world. Not need die tripping over prince learning to babble. Noble jackass. Royalty stupid by nature. Especially prince-type royalty. Stupid acceptable. Mindless not. Fucking idiot boy.
And other words to that effect.
Within seconds, the little Roman/Axumite squad forced their way through the mob of Ye-tai warriors who were milling amidships. The discipline of the Indian forces had now completely collapsed. True, the advancing pirates were equally undisciplined. But the swarming Arabs were impelled by the elation of victory, while the Ye-tai were filled with the despair of looming defeat.
Belisarius had time, briefly, to glance at Venandakatra and his little crowd of priests and kshatriyas huddled around the mainmast. The Malwa-the kshatriyas, at least-retained a semblance of disciplined order. But it was a paralyzed kind of order; of no more use than the Ye-tai chaos.
A moment later, the front line of the Romans and Axumites burst through to the small open space between the fleeing Ye-tai and the advancing Arabs. They were now aft of the mainmast and its surrounding cabin, to Belisarius’ relief. There was no way the enemy could get around them by clambering over the cabin. It was fight and die across a space of forty feet.
Seeing the sudden appearance of a disciplined and determined line before them, the pirates hesitated in their advance. The pause lasted long enough for Ousanas, Eon, and Garmat to force their own way through the milling Ye-tai and take their place just behind the line of cataphracts and sarwen.
From within the Arab crowd in the stern a man shoved his way to the fore. Unlike most of the pirates, he was equipped with a mail tunic and a helmet. His sword was long, slightly curved, and very finely made.
The man was middle-aged, but other than the grey in his beard there was not the slightest sign of any lack of vigor in his body. He was tall, well-built, and possessed both of an air of authority and a very loud voice. The air of authority steadied the pirates; the stentorian voice began to command them forward anew.
Began, but ceased suddenly. Ousanas had used up all his javelins. So the dawazz hurled his great stabbing spear.
It was the first time in his life that Belisarius had ever seen a man actually decapitated by a spear-cast. For a moment, he gaped with astonishment. The huge blade of the dawazz’s spear simply lopped the pirate’s head off and then continued on to sink into the chest of a pirate standing behind.
The Arabs froze at the sight, momentarily paralyzed. Belisarius bellowed. The cataphracts and sarwen lunged forward.
Now it was pure mayhem, sheer carnage. The Romans and Axumites hammered into the Arab crowd like a machine. The lightly armored pirates at the front went down like slaughtered lambs, their skulls crushed or split open, their chests or bellies skewered, their arms amputated. In falling, they hampered the pirates behind who, in turn, could put up little resistance to that ferocious charge.
It was not all one-sided, of course. Menander cried out and fell, clutching his side. A sword thrust coming from somewhere in the pirate mob had found its mark. One of the sarwen cried out also, staggering, his face covered with blood from a scalp wound. The wound was not fatal, for the Ethiopian had deflected the sword with his shield just before it landed. But, like all head wounds, it bled profusely.
Stubbornly, the sarwen began to return to the front line, but Ousanas pulled him back and gently took his spear. The man was almost helpless, blinded from the blood. Garmat steadied him with a hand. The old adviser stood guard over the wounded sarwen and Menander, as the battle pushed its way to the stern.
Ousanas took a place in the front line. A moment later, so did Eon. There was no dawazz, now, to restrain the pride of young royalty. Eon surged into the gap created by Menander’s fall and began his eager spearwork with the two veterans, Valentinian and Anastasius, on either side.
Young and impetuous he may have been, even, perhaps, foolish in his enthusiasm. But he tripped neither of the cataphracts by his side, nor did he get in the way of their veteran slaughter. And if, once, Anastasius was forced to cover the prince’s side because the youth had surged too far forward in his inexperience, the huge Thracian was not disgruntled. He had done the same before, many times, for other young warriors. Young warriors who, often enough, had been paralyzed with sudden fear-which the prince certainly was not. Eon slew the man before him, and Anastasius crushed the life from the other who would have stabbed the prince’s unguarded side.
All in a day’s work, all in a day’s work. Training young warriors was part of the trade, and it was a trade which could be learned by no other method. So did Anastasius remind the dawazz, firmly, in the quiet hours after the battle, when Ousanas began to chide the idiot boy. And Valentinian actually managed to silence Ousanas completely-wonder of wonders-with a few short, curt, pungent phrases. Hot and angry phrases, in point of fact.
The cynical veteran Valentinian, as it happens, had developed a sudden enthusiasm for the Prince Eon. A very fierce enthusiasm, born of an ancient warrior tradition.
Not all the casualties of a battle are
novices. Veterans die too, sometimes, brought down by the smallest chances. And on that night-that hellfire-lit, bedlam-shrieking, dragon-raging night-the crafty and cunning Valentinian had finally met his nemesis. From the smallest, chanciest thing.
The veteran killer, master and survivor of a hundred dusty battlefields, had found his death aboard wooden planks. He had not considered the nature of a blood-soaked ship’s deck, so unlike the blood-soaked soil of land carnage. And so, striding forward to deliver another death-blow, as he had done times beyond remembering, his foot had skidded out from under him. Flat on his back Valentinian had fallen, his shield askew, his sword arm flailing, his entire body open and helpless. A pirate took the wonderful opportunity instantly and gleefully. To his dying day, Valentinian would never forget the sight of that sword tip readying to butcher his belly.
Except that the sword tip stopped, not more than an inch away, and withdrew. It took Valentinian a moment to realize that the cause of the bizarre retreat was Eon’s spear, which had taken the pirate square in the chest. The veteran Valentinian was paralyzed himself, then, for a second or two. Not from fear so much as a strange wonder.
The pirate never lost his determination to slay the cataphract. His fierce black eyes never left those of Valentinian. And the rage in those eyes never died, until the man himself did. His sword continued to jab, his body continued to lunge forward. But the pirate was inexorably held at bay, by a spear in the hands of a boy. An idiot boy, perhaps, but a strong and fearless boy, most certainly.
So, in the quiet hours after the battle, when the boy’s mentor began to criticize him for an idiot, Valentinian would have none of it. No, none at all. And it was noted, thereafter, by all who knew that deadly weasel of a man, that a small group of people had gained a new member.
The comrades-in-arms of Valentinian, that group was called, by him as well as others. Those few-those very, very, very few-privileged to share his cups, handle his blades, criticize his faults, and compliment his women.
Eon, Prince of Axum, was the only royal member of that club. Then, or ever. But the lad took no umbrage in the fact. Royal, the group was not; no, not even noble. But it was among the smallest clubs in the world. Perhaps its most exclusive. Certainly its most select.
All that, however, lay in the future. The Arabs had been pushed back into the very stern of the ship. As their numbers grew compressed, their ability to fight lessened. The press of the mob badly hampered those pirates who were still eager for combat.
But there were few such left. The ruthless assault of the Byzantines and Ethiopians had demoralized the great majority of the pirates-the more so, in that they had thought themselves on the verge of victory.
Most, now, thought of nothing but escape. As many as could clambered down the stern of the ship into the galley which was still lashed alongside. But the galley was soon so overloaded with refugees that its captain ordered the grappling lines severed.
Many pirates simply dove off the side of the ship. Some found refuge aboard the retreating galley which had been lashed to the stern. More found refuge in the other surviving pirate craft, which had now found its way from the bow whence it had been repulsed earlier by those same horrible Romans and Axumites. Most drowned.
At the end, only a dozen or so Arabs remained aboard the ship. Gathered in a compact group at the very stern, these men began negotiating with Belisarius for terms of surrender. For his part, the general was willing. There had been enough slaughter.
But the negotiations were almost instantly moot. The Ye-tai had now regained their courage, and they surged in a horde toward the stern, shrieking their battle cries. Hearing them come, the Romans and Axumites stood aside at Belisarius’ command, and let the Ye-tai conclude the battle.
The barbarians had not the slightest interest in negotiations. And so, the remaining Arabs died to a man.
But the slaughter was by no means one-sided. Whatever else they were, the pirates were not craven. Before they perished, they took some Ye-tai with them to oblivion.
Though his face remained expressionless throughout, Belisarius took great pleasure in the fact. His cataphracts and the sarwen, he thought, did likewise. About Eon and Garmat, there was no doubt at all, from their fierce scowls.
As for Ousanas’ attitude-well, it was difficult to say. Watching the final act of the battle from the sidelines, the dawazz kept up a running commentary, alternating between philosophical observations on the just deserts of piracy and jocular remarks on the incompetence of barbarian swordsmen.
He spoke in pidgin Greek, not in Hindi, nor in the language of the barbarians themselves. But at least one Ye-tai warrior had his suspicions aroused-judging, at least, from the fierce manner in which he advanced on Ousanas, waving his sword most threateningly.
The truth would never be known, however. Ousanas seized the warrior’s wrist and his throat, shook loose the sword, crushed the throat, and hurled the Ye-tai overboard. Other barbarians, observing the scene, chose thereafter to ignore his commentary. Which was perhaps just as well, since the ruminations of Ousanas thenceforth focused on the worthlessness of barbarians in general and Ye-tai in particular.
Quite exclusively, quite exhaustively, and loud enough to be heard by every fish in the Erythrean Sea.
Chapter 17
In the days following the battle with the pirates, as the Indian vessel made its slow way across the Erythrean Sea, much changed.
Not the sea itself, nor the wind. No, the southeast monsoon maintained its unwavering force, fierce and blustery. (Quite unlike, Garmat assured the Romans, the pleasant and balmy monsoon which would bear them westward some months hence.) And the sea seemed always the same, as did the dimly-seen coastline to their north. The coast of Persia, now, for they had crossed the Straits of Hormuz, leaving Arabia and its dangers behind.
The same, also, was Eon’s daily grousing on the subject of land lubberly Indians; and his adviser’s frequent comments on the contrasting habits of such true seafaring folk as Ethiopians and Arabs (and Greeks, of course) who eschewed the creeping coast and set forth boldly across the open ocean; and the inevitable remarks which followed from Ousanas, on the inseparable bond between seamanship and braggadocio.
But everything else changed.
The first change was in the attitude of Venandakatra toward his “guests.” The Indian grandee lost not a trace of his hauteur, and his cold, serpentine arrogance. But he no longer ignored the foreigners. Oh no, not at all. Daily he came to visit, trailing a gaggle of priests, spending at least an hour at the bow in discourse with Belisarius, Eon, and Garmat. (The others he ignored; they were but common soldiers or, in the case of Ousanas, the most grotesque slave in creation.)
Daily, also, he invited Belisarius and Eon (and, grudgingly, Garmat) to dine with him in his cabin that evening. The invitation was invariably accepted. By Belisarius, eagerly; by Garmat, dutifully; by the prince, with the sullen discipline of a boy hauled by his ears.
The general’s eagerness for these evening meals did not arise from any pleasure in Venandakatra’s company. In person, in private, the Indian lord was even more loathsome than he was at a distance. Nor was Belisarius’ enthusiasm occasioned by the meals themselves, though they were truly excellent repasts. Belisarius was not a gourmand, and he had always found that the most important seasoning for food was good company at the table. The meals served in Venandakatra’s cabin were splendid, but they were seasoned with a spiritual sauce so foul it might have been the saliva of Satan himself.
Neither was the general’s joy in these social encounters produced by any misreading of Venandakatra’s motives. Belisarius knew full well that the sudden Malwa hospitality did not result from gratitude for the decisive role played by Belisarius and his men in the battle with the pirates.
No, the truth was quite the opposite, and Belisarius knew it as surely as he knew his own name. Venandakatra’s new cordiality was the product of the battle, true. A product, however, which was born not of gratitude but f
ear.
Venandakatra had never witnessed Romans in combat, nor Axumites. Now he had, and knew them for his future enemy, and knew-with that bone-chilling certainty known only by those who have actually seen the mace-crushed skulls and the spear-sundered chests, and the guttering blood and severed limbs-that his enemy was terrible beyond all former comprehension. What had seemed, in the conspiring corridors of Malwa palaces and the scented chambers of Malwa emperors, to be a surety of the future, seemed so no longer. Rome would be conquered, and enslaved. But it would be no easy task, nor a simple one.
And so, Belisarius knew, Venandakatra made his daily visits, and his daily invitations to dinner. Just so does the cobra raise its head, and swell its hood, and flick its tongue, and sway its sinuous rhythm, the better to put its prey into a trance.
And just so, joyfully, does the mongoose enter the trap.
Crooked as a root was the mind of Belisarius. And now, finally, inside the gnarls and twists of his peculiar mind, a plot was sprouting and spreading.
The growing plot was as cunning as any stratagem the general had ever devised. (And he was a man who treasured cunning much as another might treasure gold, or another the beauty of concubines.) Of itself, however, the cleverness produced only satisfaction in the heart of Belisarius, not joy. No, the joy derived elsewhere. The joy-it might be better to say, the savage and pitiless glee-derived from the fact that the entire plot pivoted on the very soul of the man against whom it was aimed. The Vile One, Venandakatra was called. And it would be by his own vileness that Belisarius would bring him down.
So, every day, on the sunlit bow of the ship, Belisarius greeted Venandakatra with cordiality and respect. So, every evening, in the lantern-gloom of the cabin, Belisarius returned the grandee’s slimy bonhomie with his own oily camaraderie, the lord’s lecherous humor with his own salacious wit, and the flashes of Malwa depravity with glimpses of his own bestial corruption.