He pointed at the prince, his finger like a spear.
“This budding conspirator, this still-sprouting-intriguer, this not-yet-genius-spymaster, thought it would be most clever if, in our travels through the Roman Empire, I pretended to be a pidgin-babbling ignoramus from the bush. Unsuspecting Romans, he thought, might unthinkingly utter deep secrets in the presence of a thick-tongued slave.”
The finger transferred its aim to Garmat.
“This one, this grey-bearded-not-yet-wise-man, this decrepit-old-broken-down-so-called-adviser, thought the plan might have some merit. So, there I was, trapped between the Scylla of naïveté and the Charybdis of senility.”
He raised his eyes to the heavens.
“Pity me, Romans. There I was, for months, as cultured a heathen as ever departed the savanna, forced to channel my fluid thoughts through the medium of pidgin and trade argot. Ah, woe! Woe, I say! Woe!”
“You seem to have survived the experience,” chuckled Valentinian.
“He is very good at surviving experiences,” interjected Wahsi. “That is why we made him dawazz.”
The sarwen exchanged a knowing, humorous look.
“Ousanas likes to think it was because of his skills and abilities,” added Ezana. A derisive bark. “What nonsense! He is lucky. That is his only talent. But—a prince needs to learn luck, more than anything, and so we made the savage his dawazz.”
Ousanas began some retort, but Belisarius interrupted.
“Later, if you please. For now, there are others things more important to discuss.”
He turned to Garmat. “Are you satisfied?”
The adviser glanced at his prince. Eon nodded, very firmly. Garmat still hesitated, for just a second, before he nodded his head as well.
“Good,” said Belisarius. “Now—I have a plan.”
* * *
After Belisarius finished, Eon spoke at once.
“I won’t do it! It’s beneath—”
A sharp slap atop his head by Ousanas.
“Silence! Is good plan! Good for prince, too. Learn to think like worm instead of lion. Worms eat lions, fool boy, not other way around.”
“I told you to stop speaking pidgin!” snarled Eon.
Another slap.
“Not speaking pidgin. Speaking baby talk. All stupid prince can understand.”
Garmat added his own weight to the argument.
“Your dawazz is right, Prince.” The adviser made a soothing gesture. “Not the worm, business, of course. Disrespectful brute! But he’s right about the plan. It is good, in the main, especially insofar as your own part is concerned.”
He cast a questioning eye at Belisarius.
“Some of the rest, General, I confess I find perhaps excessively complex.”
” ‘Perhaps excessively complex,’ ” mimicked Valentinian harshly. The cataphract leaned forward.
“General, in the absence of Maurice, I have to take his place. As best I can. The first law of battles—”
Belisarius waved the objection aside, chuckling.
“I know it by heart! This is not a battle, Valentinian. This is intrigue.”
“Still, General,” interrupted Anastasius, “you’re depending too much on happenstance. I don’t care if we’re talking battles or intrigue—or plotting how to cuckold the quartermaster, for that matter—you still can’t rely that much on luck.” Unlike Valentinian’s voice, whose tenor had been sharp with agitation, Anastasius’ basso was calm and serene. His words carried much the greater weight, because of it.
Belisarius hesitated, marshaling his arguments. This was no place for simple authority, he knew. The cataphracts and the Ethiopians needed to be convinced, not commanded.
Before he could speak, Ousanas interrupted.
“I disagree with Anastasius and Valentinian. And Garmat. They are mistaking complexity for intricacy. The plan is complex, true, in the sense that it involves many interacting vectors.”
Belisarius restrained a laugh, seeing the gapes of his Thracian soldiers and the glum resignation on the faces of Ethiopian sarwen. Ousanas gestured enthusiastically.
“But that is not the same thing as luck! Oh, no, not at all. Luck is my specialty, it is true, just as the sarwen said. But the simple-minded warrior” —a dismissive wave— “does not understand luck, and that is why he thinks I am lucky. I am not. I am fortunate, because I understand the way of good fortune.”
The dawazz leaned forward.
“The secret of which is I will now tell you. One cannot predict the intricate workings of luck, but one can grasp the vectors of good fortune. All you must do is find the simple thing which is at the heart of the problem and seize it. Hold that—hold it with a grip of iron, and keep it always in your mind—and you will find your way through the vectors.”