There would be no way to surprise the Malwa with any clever maneuver with concealed troops. Not this time.
"We will have to rely on your main plan, then," said Baresmanas. The sahrdaran heaved a sigh. "Casualties will be high."
Belisarius tightened his lips. "Yes, they will. But I don't see any other option."
Baresmanas turned his head, staring to the west. Across the river, he could see the huge camp where Ormazd's twenty thousand lancers and archers had taken position, after arriving the week before. Even at the distance, he could see Ormazd's own pavilion, towering over the much-less-elaborate tents of his soldiers.
"If he does not-"
"He will," said Belisarius confidently. His crooked smile came, in full force.
"You will have noticed, I'm sure, that Ormazd pitched his camp there-instead of further down the river."
Baresmanas nodded, scowling. "The swine," he growled. "Upstream of the dam, where he pitched his camp, there is no way he can cross the Euphrates in time to give you help, should you need it. He should have taken position several miles further down, where the riverbed is almost empty."
Belisarius shook his head.
"Not a chance, Baresmanas. His troops would take the brunt of the assault, then. Whereas now-"
"They are obviously out of the action," concluded the sahrdaran. "The Malwa will recognize that immed-iately, and concentrate most of their forces here. They will only need to keep a screen against the chance of Ormazd attacking their left."
Belisarius chuckled, making clear his opinion on the likelihood of Ormazd ordering any massive sally. The Persian Emperor's half-brother, it was clear, intended to sit on his hands while the Romans and the Malwa army slugged it out on the other side of the Euphrates.
"How did he explain it?" demanded Baresmanas angrily.
Belisarius shrugged. "In all truth, he didn't have much explaining to do. I didn't press him on the matter, Baresmanas. I want him where he is."
Baresmanas' scowl deepened. Intellectually, the sahrdaran understood Belisarius' stratagem. Emotionally, however, the Aryan nobleman still choked at the idea of actually using another Aryan's expected treachery. A Sassanid, no less.
Baresmanas eyed the Roman general. "I forget, sometimes, just how incredibly cold-blooded you can be," he muttered. "I cannot think of another man who would develop a battle plan based on his expectation that an ally would betray him. Take such a possibility into account, certainly-any sane commander does that, when fighting with foreign allies. But to plan on it- No, more! To actually engineer it, to maneuver for it!-"
Baresmanas fell silent, shaking his head. Belisarius, for his part, said nothing. There was nothing to say, really. Despite the many ways in which he and Baresmanas were much alike, there were other ways in which they were as different as two men could be.
For all his sophistication and scholarship, Bares-manas was still, at bottom, the same man who had spent his boyhood admiring Persian lancers and archers. Spent hours of that boyhood watching dehgans on the training fields of his father's vast estate, demonstrating their superb skill as mounted archers.
Whereas Belisarius, for all his own sophistication and subtleties, was still-at bottom-the same man who had spent his boyhood admiring Thracian blacksmiths. Spent hours of that boyhood watching the blacksmiths on his father's modest estate, demonstrating their own more humble but-when all is said and done-much more powerful craft. Men die by the dehgan's steel. People live by the blacksmith's iron.
Even as a boy, however, Belisarius had had a subtle mind. So, where other boys admired the strength of the blacksmith, and gasped with awe at the mighty strokes of hammer on anvil, Belisarius had seen the truth. A blacksmith was a strong man, of necessity. But a good blacksmith did everything he could to husband that strength. Time after time, watching, the boy Belisarius had seen how cunningly the blacksmith positioned the glowing metal, and with what a precise angle he wielded the hammer.
So, he said nothing to Baresmanas. There was nothing to say.
A few minutes later, called down by one of his tribunes with a problem, Maurice left the artificial hilltop. Belisarius and Baresmanas remained there alone, studying the huge Malwa force advancing toward them.
They did not speak, other than to exchange an occasional professional assessment of the enemy's disposition of its forces. On that subject, not surprisingly, they were always in agreement. If Baresmanas did not have his Roman ally's sheer military genius, he was still an experienced and competent general in his own right.
Underlying that agreement, however, and for all their genuine friendship, two very different souls readied for the coming battle.
The one, an Aryan sahrdaran-noblest man of the noblest line of the world's noblest race-sought strength and courage from that very nobility. Sought for it, found it, and awaited the battle with a calm certitude in his own valor and honor.
The other, a Thracian born into the lower ranks of Rome's parvenu aristocracy, never even thought of nobility. Thought, not once, of honor or of valor. He simply waited for the oncoming enemy, patiently, like a blacksmith waits for iron to heat in the furnace.
A craftsman at his trade. Nothing more.
And nothing less.
Chapter 31
Alexandria
Autumn, 531 A.D.
"This is madness!" shouted one of the gym-nasiarchs. The portly notable was standing in the forefront of a small crowd packed into the audi-ence chamber. All of them were men, all of them were finely dressed, and most were as fat as he was.
Alexandria's city council.
"Madness!" echoed another member of the council.
"Lunacy!" cried a third.
Antonina was not certain which particular titles those men enjoyed. Gymnasiarchs also, perhaps, or possibly exegetai.
She did not care. The specific titles were meaningless-hoary traditions from the early cen-turies of the Empire, when the city council actually exercised power. In modern Alexandria, membership in the council was purely a matter of social prestige. The real authority was in the hands of the Praetorian Prefect, the commander of the Army of Egypt, and-above all-the Patriarch.
After disembarking her troops, Antonina had immediately seized a palace in the vicinity of the Great Harbor. She was not even sure whose palace it was. The owner had fled before she and her soldiers occupied the building, along with most of his servants.
Each of the many monarchs who had ruled Egypt in the eight hundred and sixty-two years since the founding of Alexandria had built their own palaces. The city was dotted with the splendiferous things. Over the centuries, most of those royal palaces had become the private residences of the city's high Greek nobility.
No sooner had she established her temporary headquarters than the entire city council appeared outside the palace, demanding the right to present their petitions and their grievances. She had invited them in-well over a hundred of the self-important folk-simply in order to gauge the attitude of Alexandria's upper crust.