Maurice glared at him, still pointing at the west wall. "Why are you here, hissing at me-instead of fighting to take the land you claim is yours?"
Shahrbaraz started to respond angrily, but the emperor waved him down.
"Be silent!" Khusrau commanded. He gave Maurice a fine glare of his own. "May I then assume that you will not object if I launch my own offensive?"
"Not in the least."
"And you will not object if we retain the land we conquer?"
Maurice snatched up the messages on the center table and shook them at the emperor. Those were copies of the exchange between Belisarius and Damodara that had taken place days earlier. "How many times do I need to show this to you? Your Majesty. Whatever you can take west of the river is yours. As far north as you can manage to get."
"To the Hindu Kush!" shouted one of the other sahrdaran. Maurice couldn't remember his name, but he was a prominent member of the house of the Spandiyads.
By a mighty struggle, Maurice managed not to sneer. "I'd recommend you stop at the foot of the Hindu Kush. Keeping in mind that King Kungas counts the Vale of Peshawar as part of it. Everything north of Kohat Pass and west of Margalla Pass belongs to him, he says. But if you think you can roll over the Kushans as well as the Malwa, so be it."
"And when have the Aryans cared-"
"Be silent!" Khusrau roared again. This time, thankfully, it was the Spandiyad who was the recipient of his imperial glare. "We are not at war with the Kushans," he stated. "All of the west Punjab to the Hindu Kush. We will stop once we have reached the passes into the Vale of Peshawar held by our allies the Kushans."
The emperor glanced down at the half-crumpled pile of messages. "As all have now agreed," he finished, more softly.
When he looked up at Maurice, he seemed considerably calmer. "Will your gunships provide us with protection from the Malwa ironclads?"
Maurice shook his head. Not angrily, but firmly nonetheless. "We can't, Your Majesty. I'm sorry, but we just can't. Neither the Justinian nor the Victrix is a match for them. Not even one of them, much less the two they have stationed on the Indus. That's why we laid the mine fields across the rivers. Once you move north of those minefields, you'll be on your own. I recommend you keep your army away from the rivers. Far enough away to be out of range of the ironclads' guns."
Khusrau didn't seem surprised by the response. Or angry, for that matter. He simply grunted softly and turned away.
"To the Hindu Kush!" he bellowed, striding toward the exit of the bunker.
Within a minute, they were all gone.
"Thank God," muttered Maurice. "Can't stand Persians. Never have liked the arrogant bastards. Think their shit doesn't stink."
"It certainly does," sniffed Anna. She'd happened to be present in the bunker, visiting her husband, when the Persian delegation arrived. "I've visited their camps, on the way up here. Their sanitary practices would cause a hyena to tremble."
Maurice chuckled. "Worse than the natives here?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact," Anna replied stiffly. "Even before I started governessing them. Today, the Punjabi habits are much better. A week from now-well, a month-there'll be no comparison at all."
Maurice didn't doubt it, although he thought Anna's estimate of one month was wildly optimistic. The difficulty wasn't so much native resistance-perhaps oddly, the Punjabis seemed quite taken by their new "Governess"-as it was the sheer scale of the problem.
Malwa armies were always notorious for their rough habits with local populations. The huge Malwa army dug in to the north of the Triangle was behaving especially badly, as packed in as those soldiers were and suffering all the miseries and frustrations of siege warfare. The Iron Triangle had become a refuge for untold thousands of Punjabis in the area. They came across the rivers, on small skiffs or even swimming through the minefields.
By now, the population density of the Triangle was almost that of a huge city. Worse, really, since most of the land area had to be left available for farming. The Triangle got much of its supplies from the Sind, brought up by the river boats, but it still had to provide the bulk of its own food. Controlling the raw sewage produced by such a population was enough to make Hercules' legendary cleaning of the Augean Stables look like an afternoon's easy chore.
"You'll see," said Anna.
* * *
"There'll be enough, General," said Ashot. "Just barely."
Belisarius nodded, after he finished wiping his face with a cloth. That was to clean off the dust, mostly. Despite the heat, the Thar was so dry that sweat didn't have time to really accumulate.
He was careful not to let his worry show. This was the third well they'd reached, and all of them had had just enough water-just barely-for his expedition. They had almost no reserve left at all. If even one of the wells was empty, or near-empty. .
But there was no point in fretting over the matter. The long war with the Malwa was nearing its end, and there remained only to drive home the lance-or die in the attempt. It was in the hands of Fate, now.
"Let's be off," he said. He glanced at the horizon, where the dawn was beginning. "There's still enough time for three hours' travel before the sun's up high enough to force us to camp for the day."
"I feel like a bat," complained Ashot. "Live by night, sleep by day."
He said it fairly cheerily, though. Ashot had plenty of experience with desert campaigns, and knew perfectly well that no sane man traveled through an area like the Thar when the sun was up. Like all the cataphracts on the expedition, he was wearing loose-fitting Arab-style robes instead of armor-the only difference being that Ashot knew how to put them on without help from one of Abbu's men.
* * *
"Something's happening," Kujulo stated. Slowly, he swept the telescope across the terrain below the pass. "I'm not sure what, but there's too much movement down there."
"Are they preparing another attack?" asked one of the other Kushans.
"After the way we butchered the last one? Doubt it," grunted Kujulo. "No, I think they're pulling out some of their forces. And I think-not sure about this at all-that there's some sort of troop movement in the far distance. But it doesn't seem to be reinforcements."
He lowered the telescope. Awkwardly, since it was big and clumsy; it was one of the eyeglasses newly made in Begram's fledgling optical industry, not one of the sleek Roman devices.
"Let the king know," he commanded. "This may be what he's expecting."
* * *
Miles away, a squad of Ye-tai had a much better view of what was happening. They were serving as sentries for the Malwa army positioned against the Kushans-and none too happy about it, either. In times past, it would have been Kushans themselves who'd be detached for this rigorous duty. But Kushans could no longer be relied upon, what few of them were still left in the Malwa forces. Their army's commander hadn't dared used common troops for the purpose. Kushans were much too good at mountain warfare to depend on levied infantry to serve as outlying sentries.
"Tell me again," said the squad leader.
The new member of the squad shrugged. He'd only arrived the day before. "Don't believe me, then. Great Lady Sati is on her way to the capital. With forty thousand troops. Seems there's a big rebellion."
"Why were you traveling with them?"
"I wasn't. I was just part of a troop sent by Samudra up here. We only marched with the Great Lady's expedition for a short distance. She's headed up the Sutlej, of course."