“Pirates,” they murmured. So might a pride of lions, if they could, mutter the word, hyenas. Or, for that matter, elands. Impalas.
Meat.
Antonina grinned. She gave the Prince a warm embrace. He returned it, somewhat gingerly, in the way that a courteous and well-bred young royal returns the embrace of a respected, admired—and very voluptuous—older woman.
“Be off,” she whispered. “Take care of Irene for me, and for Theodora. And take care of yourself.”
A moment later, Eon and his officers made their own easy and effortless descent into the skiff. Once they were aboard, the line was cast off and the boat began pulling away. The officers did their own rowing. In the Axumite tradition, they had all risen from the ranks. They were accustomed to the task, and did it with familiar expertise. Quickly, the skiff pulled toward the waiting Ethiopian warship.
Antonina and Irene stared at each other, for a time, during that short voyage. Close friends—best friends—they had become, during the past three years of joint work and struggle against the Malwa menace. Each of them, now, was taking her own route into the maw of the beast. In all likelihood, they would never see each other again.
Antonina fought back her tears.
“God, I’ll miss you,” she whispered. “So much.”
Thirty yards away, she saw Irene turn her head aside. She did not miss the slight sheen in those distant eyes. Irene, she knew, was fighting back her own tears.
Antonina tore her gaze from the figure of her friend and stared at Eon. The Prince was sitting in the stern-sheet of the skiff. Antonina could see his head slowly turning, as he scanned the surface of the waves.
Already, she realized, Eon was fulfilling his promise to protect Irene from any danger.
Then, seeing the arrogant ferocity lurking in Eon’s huge shoulders, she could not help smiling. She found great comfort in those shoulders.
Sharks, of course, do not have shoulders. But if they did, so might a great shark confront the monsters of the sea.
Tuna. Squid. Devil-rays.
Meat.
By the time the skiff bearing Irene reached its destination, other skiffs were making their own way to the Axumite warship from other Roman craft, bearing their own cargoes.
Three of those skiffs carried barrels of gunpowder. Two hauled cannons—brass three-pounders, one in each skiff. And two more carried the small band of Syrian grenadiers, and their wives and children, who had volunteered to accompany Irene to India. Trainers, if all went well, for whatever forces the Empress Shakuntala might have succeeded in gathering around her. Trainers, and their gear, for the future gunpowder-armed rebellion of south India.
Antonina’s little hands gripped the rail. Her husband Belisarius, while he was in India, had done everything in his power to help create that rebellion. He was not a man to forget or abandon those he had sent in harm’s way.
Not my husband, she thought, proudly, possessively.
She did not know the future. But Antonina would not have been surprised to learn that in humanity’s future—any of those possible futures—the name of Belisarius would always be remembered for two things, if nothing else.
Military brilliance.
Loyalty.
She cast a last glance at the small and distant figure of her friend Irene and turned away from the rail. Then, walked—marched, rather—to the bow of her own ship and stared across the waters of the Mediterranean.
Stared to the southwest, now. Toward Alexandria.
She gripped the rail again, and even more tightly.
Silently, she made her vows. If Irene reached India safely, she would not be stranded. If Belisarius’ determination to support the Andhra rebellion was thwarted, it would not be because Antonina failed her share of that task.
She would take Alexandria, and Egypt, and reestablish the Empire’s rule. She would harness the skills and resources of that great province and turn it into the armory of Rome’s war against Malwa.
That armory, among other things, would be used to support Shakuntala and her rebels. Many of those guns would go south. Guns, cannons, rockets, gunpowder—and the men and women needed to use them and train others in their use.
South, to Axum. Then, across the Erythrean Sea to Majarashtra. Somehow, someway, those weapons would find their way into the hands of the young Empress whom Belisarius had freed from captivity.