As he waited for the commander of the Constantinople troopers to settle in, Belisarius found himself a bit puzzled by the man’s behavior—and by those of his subordinates, for that matter. Agathius seemed distracted, as if his mind were elsewhere. That was quite unlike the man. Agathius was only twenty-eight years old, which was quite young for a soldier risen from the ranks to have become a hecatontarch, much less a chiliarch. Yet, despite the man’s youth and his outward appearance as a muscular bruiser, Belisarius had found Agathius to be not only intelligent but possessed of an almost ferocious capacity for concentration.
Odd, that air of distraction, mused Belisarius. And why are his subordinates giving him such peculiar sidelong glances? You’d almost think they were smirking.
He pushed the matter out of his mind. To business.
In the three hours which followed, Belisarius presented his commanders with two matters for their consideration.
The first—which took up two of those hours—was an outline of the stratagem he was developing for using the Nehar Malka in their next campaign against the Malwa. Many aspects of his plans he left unspoken—partly, for security reasons, partly, because they were still half-formed. But he said enough to allow the commanders to join in a discussion of the allotment of Roman troops to the different tasks involved.
Interestingly enough, he noted, Agathius’ distraction seemed to vanish during that discussion. Indeed, the Greek chiliarch played a leading role in it.
“It’s essential that Abbu remain behind,” insisted Agathius, “—with most of his skirmishers—”
The Constantinople man beat down the protests coming from other commanders.
“Quit whining!” he snapped. “The rest of us are just going on a march to Babylon, by way of Ctesiphon. Right in the heart of Persian territory, for the sake of God! We already crushed the only Malwa raiding force anybody knows of—so what do we need scouts for?”
He jabbed a thumb at Basil, then nodded toward the Syrian infantry leaders.
“Whereas these boys are going to be left alone up here. With two thousand Kushans to keep an eye on, and the desert not ten miles away. They’ll be sitting ducks, if the Lakhmids come on them unawares.”
Belisarius sat back, more than satisfied to let the Greek handle the problem.
Having squelched that little protest, Agathius rolled over the next.
“And as for this crap about the Callinicum garrison”—here he glowered at his own Con-stantinople subordinates, who had been the most vocal in their protests—”I don’t want to hear it! They did well enough—damn well, all things considered—in the fight at the villa. Sure, they’re not up to the standards of the Syrian lads—not yet, anyway—but that’s all the more reason not to leave them behind. The katyusha-men and the Syrians have got enough on their plate already, without having to train inexperienced men in the kind of heavy engineering work they’ll be doing.”
Another glare. “So they’re coming with us, just as the general proposed. And there’ll be no grousing about it.”
The other Greeks in the tent—who had been doing most of the grousing about “Callinicum crybabies”—lowered their heads. It was all Belisarius could do to keep from grinning. He already knew that Agathius had the easy, relaxed confidence of his subordinates. Now, when needed, the man had shown that he could also break them to his will.
So much met with Belisarius’ silent approval. The next, with his admiration.
Agathius’ hard eyes left the Greeks, and settled on Celsus, the commander of the Callinicum garrison troops. Celsus was sitting, hunched, on a stool in a corner of the tent. He was a small man, rather elderly for a soldier, and diffident by nature. As usual during command conferences, he had been silent throughout the entire discussion. A silence which had grown purely abject as the qualities of his men had been subjected to the beratement of other, younger, more assertive, more confident—and certainly louder—officers.
Agathius gave the man a little nod, lingering over the gesture just long enough to make his approval clear to everyone. Celsus nodded back, his eyes shining with thanks. For a moment, his skinny shoulders even lost their habitual stoop.
As Agathius resumed his seat, Belisarius sent a quick thought to Aide.