Anastasius shook his head sadly. “Most of the other words were just useless adjectives. Very redundant.” The giant bestowed a reproving glance on his comrade. “He’s given to profanity.”
They were nearing the encampment of the Con-stantinople garrison troops. Belisarius spurred his horse into a trot. After Valentinian and Anastasius dropped back to their usual position as his bodyguards, Belisarius cocked his head and said:
“Remember. Disagree. Disapprove. If I say something reasonable, scowl. Pleasant, snarl. Calm and soothing—spit on the ground.”
Mutter, mutter, mutter.
Belisarius repressed his smile. He did not ask for a translation. He was quite sure the words had been pure profanity.
They began encountering the first outposts of the Constantinople garrison. Within a minute, trotting forward, they passed several hundred soldiers, huddled in small groups at the outer perimeter of the route camp. As Belisarius had expected, a large number of the troops were holding back from the body of men milling around in the center. These would be the faint-hearts and the fence-sitters—or the “semi-loyalists,” if you preferred.
He made it a point to bestow a very cordial smile upon all those men. Even a verbal greeting, here and there. Valentinian and Anastasius immediately responded with their own glowers, which Valentinian accompanied by a nonstop muttering. The garrison troops responded to the general’s smile, in the main, with expressions of uncertainty. But Belisarius noted that a number of them managed their own smiles in return. Timid smiles; sickly smiles—but smiles nonetheless.
I knew it, he thought, with considerable self-satisfaction.
Aide’s voice came into his mind. Knew what? And what is going on? I am confused.
Belisarius hesitated, before responding. To his—”its,” technically, but the general had long since come to think of Aide as “he”—consciousness, insubordination and rebellion were bizarre conceptions. Aide had been produced by a race of intelligent crystals in the far distant future and sent back in time, to save them from enslavement (and possibly outright destruction) by those they called the “new gods.” The intelligence of those crystals was utterly inhuman, in many ways. One of those ways was their lack of individuality. Each crystal, though distinct, was a part of their collective mentality—just as each crystal, in its turn, was the composite being created by the ever-moving facets which generated that strange intelligence. To those crystals, and to Aide, the type of internal discord and dispute which humans took for granted was almost unfathomable.
We are having what we call a “mutiny,” Aide. Or a “rebellion.”
From long experience, Belisarius had learned how to project his own visions into the consciousness of Aide. He had found that such visions often served as a better means of communication than words.
He did so now, summoning up images of various mutinies and rebellions of the past, culminating with the revolt of Spartacus and its gruesome finale.
He could sense the facets flashing around the visions, trying to absorb their essence.
While they did so, and Aide ruminated, Belisarius and his bodyguards reached the center of the camp. At least four hundred soldiers from the Constantinople garrison were clustered there, most of them in small groups centered around the older soldiers.
Belisarius was not surprised. The men, he gauged, were leaning heavily on the judgements and opinions of their squad leaders and immediate superiors. This was an army led by pentarchs, decarchs, and hecatontarchs, now, not officers.
Good. I can deal with those veterans. They’ll be sullen and angry, but they’ll also be thinking about their pensions. Unlike the officers, they don’t have rich estates to retire to.
Silence fell over the mob. Belisarius slowly rode his horse into the very center of the crowd. After drawing up his mount, he scanned the soldiers staring up at him with a long, calm gaze.
A thought came from Aide.
This is stupid. Your plan is ridiculous.
The facets had reached their conclusion, firmly and surely, from their assessment of the general’s vision. Especially the last vision, the suppression of the Spartacus rebellion.
Preposterous. Absurd. Irrational. You cannot possibly crucify all these men. There is not that much wood in the area.
Belisarius struggled mightily with sudden laughter. He managed, barely, to transform the hilarity into good cheer.