That opinion had crystallized, in Constantinople itself, with the defeat of the Nika insurrection. From there, carried by the sailors and merchants who weaved Roman society into a single cloth, the opinion had spread to every corner of the Empire. From the Danube to Elephantine, from Cyrene to Tre-bizond, the great millions of Rome’s citizens had heard, discussed, quarreled, decided.
The dynasty which ruled the Empire was their dynasty.
It never occurred to them, of course, to think of the dynasty as a “people’s dynasty.” Emperors were emperors; common folk were common folk. The one ruled the other. Law of nature.
But they did think of it as theirs. Not because the dynasty came from their own ranks—which it did, and they knew it, and took pleasure in the knowing—so much as they were satisfied that the dynasty understood them; and based its power on their support; and kept at least one eye open on behalf of their needs and interests.
Common folk were common folk, emperors were emperors, and never the twain shall meet. That still leaves the difference between a good emperor and a bad one—a difference which common folk measure with a very different stick than nobility.
The taxes had been lowered, and made more equitable. The haughtiest nobles and the most corrupt bureaucrats had been humbled, always a popular thing, among those over whom the elite lords it—even executed. Wildly popular, that. Stability had been restored, and with it the conditions which those people needed to feed their families.
And, finally, there was Belisarius.
As she marched through the streets, Antonina was struck by how often her husband’s name made up the cheer coming from the throats of the Greek residents. The Egyptians, too, chanted his name. But they were as likely to call out her own or the Empress Theodora’s.
Among the Greeks, one name only:
Belisarius! Belisarius! Belisarius!
She took no personal umbrage in that chant. If nothing else, it was obvious that the cheer was the Greeks’ way of approving her, as well. She was Belisarius’ wife, and if the Greek upper crust had often sneered at the general for marrying such a disreputable woman, it was clear as day that the Greek commoners lining the streets of Alexandria were not sneering at him in the least.
The Greeks had found their own way to support the dynasty, she realized. Belisarius might be a Thracian himself, and might have married an Egyptian, and put his half-Egyptian, half-who-knows-what bastard stepson on the throne, but he was still a Greek. In the way which mattered most to that proudest of Rome’s many proud nations.
Whipped the Persians, didn’t he? Just like he’ll whip these Malwa dogs. Whoever they are.
Hermogenes leaned over to her, whispering: “The word of Anatha’s already spread.”
Antonina nodded. She had just gotten the word herself, the day before. The semaphore network was still half-finished, but enough of it had been completed to bring the news to Antioch—and from there, by a swift keles courier ship, to Alexandria.
There had been nothing personal, addressed to her, in the report. But she had recognized her husband’s turn of phrase in the wording of it. And had seen his shrewd mind at work, in the way he emphasized the decisive role of Greek cataphracts in winning the great victory over Malwa.
That word, too, had obviously spread. She could read it in the way Greek shopkeepers grinned, as they cheered her army onward, and the way Greek sailors hoisted their drinking cups in salute to the passing soldiers.
Thank you, husband. Your great victory has given me a multitude of small ones.
The fortress at Nicopolis where the Army of Egypt lay waiting was one of the Roman Empire’s mightiest. Not surprising. The garrison was critical to the Empire’s rule. Egyptian grain fed the Roman world—Constantinople depended upon it almost entirely—and the grain was shipped through Alex-andria’s port. Since Augustus, every Roman Emperor had seen to it that Egypt was secure. For centuries, now, the fort at Nicopolis had been strengthened, expanded, modified, built up, and strengthened yet again.
“We’ll never take it by storm,” stated Ashot. “Not with the forces we’ve got. Even grenades’d be like pebbles, against those walls.”