“Eon’s going to bitch at us again tonight,” commented Anastasius. He glanced at the general. “Quite a task you assigned him, sir. Poor lad.”
“Poor lad, my ass,” snapped Valentinian. He perched on the couch next to Menander. “I’d trade places with him in a minute.”
“Me, too,” whispered Menander. “It’d kill me, for sure, but what a way to go.”
Belisarius smiled. “I didn’t realize you prized Venandakatra’s company so much, Valentinian.”
The cataphract sneered. “Not that! That part of the job the prince is welcome to. It’s the part coming now that I’d treasure.”
“Not everyone approaches these things like a weasel, Valentinian,” said Anastasius mildly.
“Crap! He’s a prince, for the sake of Christ. Probably got his first concubine when he was twelve.”
“Thirteen,” said Belisarius. “Her name is Zaia. She’s still with him, by the way, and he’s very fond of her.”
Belisarius took a seat himself. He grimaced, remembering the night in Venandakatra’s cabin when Eon-as instructed beforehand by Belisarius, coached by Garmat, and slapped atop the head innumerable times by Ousanas-had finally broached the subject of his insatiable sexual appetites. The prince had performed perfectly in the hours which followed, swapping tales with the Vile One. For all their boastfulness, none of Eon’s tales came close to Venandakatra’s in sheer debauchery, but the lad did quite well. His long and lascivious description of his first concubine had been particularly well done.
Afterward, in their own cabin, the boy had refused to speak to anyone for a full day. To Belisarius, not for three days.
Perfect. Now that they were ashore, of course, the boy would have to live up to his boasts. There had been no women aboard the ship, and Eon had hastily declined Venandakatra’s offer of a cabin boy. His tastes, he had explained, were exclusively oriented to the female sex.
“Poor lad, my ass,” muttered Valentinian again. He eyed Anastasius coldly. “And you have some nerve, lecturing me about weasels.”
Anastasius grinned. “I’m not a young prince, full of righteousness and royal propriety.” He stretched his arms and yawned. “I’m just a simple farm boy, at heart, with fond memories of haystacks. And such.” He returned Valentinian’s cold stare.
“Furthermore, I don’t see what you’re complaining about. Nobody said we have to remain abstinent. Quite the contrary, in fact.”
He raised his huge hand, forestalling Belisarius. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Kushans only. Not a problem, I assure you.”
“What do Kushans look like?” asked Menander. The young man’s expression bore equal parts of curiosity and frustration.
“Oh, you won’t be missing a thing, Menander!” exclaimed Anastasius. “Horrid folk, Kushans. Ugliest people in the world, especially the women.”
Valentinian shuddered. “I shudder to think of it.” He shuddered again. “See?”
“I hate mustaches on a woman,” grumbled Anastasius.
“I can live with the mustaches,” retorted Valentinian. “It’s those damned beards that bother me.”
“And the knobby fingers.”
“The scrawny legs.”
“Which go so oddly with those”-here Anastasius cupped his hands before his stomach-“bloated bellies.”
“And where did they get that habit of filing their teeth into sharp points?” demanded Valentinian crossly.
“Oh, well,” groaned Anastasius. “Duty calls.” He arose. “Come, Valentinian. We must be off, about the general’s business.”
As the two veterans were leaving the room, Anastasius shook his sausage-sized finger in Valentinian’s face.
“Remember! Kushans only! I won’t have you leading me astray!”
“Kushans only,” grumbled Valentinian. As they went through the door, a last repartee:
Valentinian, whispering: “But those eyes-those rheumy, salt-encrusted, lifeless-”
“It’s because of the diseases they all carry, you know. That’s what causes the sores on their-”
The door closed.
Menander looked at Belisarius. “They’re lying, aren’t they?”
Belisarius chuckled. “Through their teeth, Menander. Kushans are quite attractive folk, in their own way. They look much like Ye-tai. More like Huns, perhaps. They’re of the same stock.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Belisarius nodded. “Oh, yes. They’re all part of that great mass of central Asian nomads which erupts into civilized lands every century or so. The Kushans conquered Bactria and parts of north India a long time ago. Over the centuries, they lost most of their barbarousness and became rather civilized. They did quite well, in fact. Bactria under Kushan rule used to be quite a pleasant place, by all accounts.”
“What happened?”
Belisarius shrugged. “I don’t know, in detail. Fifty years or so ago, their Ye-tai cousins erupted into the area. They ravaged parts of Persia, conquered Bactria and reduced the Kushans to vassals, and then plundered their way into north India. Where, in the end, they seemed to have reached an accommodation with the Malwa.”
Frustration replaced curiosity on Menander’s face.
“Damn.” He struggled to find solace. “Oh, well, it’s not that bad. I never found Huns attractive anyway. They stink, all the ones I’ve met. And I think their way of greasing up their hair is grotesque.”
Belisarius forebore comment. Menander hadn’t thought through the implications of Belisarius’ little history lesson. The Kushans hadn’t been nomads for centuries, and had long since adopted such civilized customs as regular bathing. Belisarius himself had met a few Kushans, and he had found them a reasonably comely people.
But he saw no reason to enlighten the lad. The one part of this journey which Menander had looked forward to was encountering exotic and fascinating women. And here he was, in Bharakuccha, with uncountable numbers close at hand. And so weak he could barely feed himself, much less Belisarius rose.
“I’ve got to be off, myself. Will you-”
“I’ll be fine, sir. I think I’m going to sleep, anyway. I’m very tired.” Apologetically: “I’m sorry I’m of so little-”
“Quiet! Wounds are wounds, Menander. And yours was-well, there’s no reason not to tell you now. Yours was fatal, nine times out of ten. I’m surprised you’re still alive, and mending. I hardly expect you to do anything more. Not for weeks.”
Menander smiled, faintly. Within a minute, he was fast asleep. Belisarius left the room, closing the door softly.
Once outside the hostel, the general wandered in the vicinity of the docks. While their ship had been working its way into the harbor, he had noticed something he wanted to investigate further.
As he walked through the teeming streets, he let his mind go blank and allowed the jewel to work its linguistic magic. It was still strange to him, how the jewel could enable him to grasp languages so quickly and effortlessly. But its capacity to do so had been proven often enough.
There were limits to the magic. The jewel enabled him to understand language very swiftly. After hearing only a few sentences spoken in a foreign tongue, Belisarius was able to grasp the essential meaning of what was being spoken. Understanding every single word, especially when the speaker was talking rapidly, took longer.
Learning how to speak the language, however, was a different proposition altogether. Here, the muscles of the mouth and tongue were needed as much as intelligence. Belisarius had already discovered, from his experience with Ge’ez, that it took him much longer to learn to speak a language than to comprehend it. He could manage to make himself understood fairly quickly, so long as he spoke slowly and carefully. But being able to speak it fluently, and without accent, took a great deal of practice.
Still, the jewel made that possible also. In some manner Belisarius did not clearly understand, the jewel fed his own words back to some part of his mind, acting as a continuous tutor. It took time and patience, true, but with practice Belisarius could make himself sound as a native speaker of any language.