Kurush’s mouth snapped shut. For a moment, the Persian nobleman stared at Belisarius as if he were a madman. Then he burst into laughter.
“In the east?” he cried. Kurush’s laughter was echoed by all three of his officers. One of them snorted. “Those hicks can barely manage to rim a cartwheel.”
“Do they even have carts?” demanded another.
Kurush was back to vigorous headshaking. “The eastern provinces are inhabited by nothing besides peasants and petty noblemen. They know how to grow crops. And how to fight, of course—but even that, they do poorly.”
He rocked his head back and forth, once, twice, thrice. The quick little gesture was by way of qualification. “I should be fair. The eastern dehgans are as good as any, in single combat. But their tactics—”
“Charge,” sneered one of his officers. “If that doesn’t work—charge again.” His two fellows chortled agreement. “And if that doesn’t work?” queried one. He shrugged. “Charge again. And keep doing it until your horse has the good sense to run away.”
Kurush grinned. “If you want Persian artisans, Belisarius, you have to go to Mesopotamia or Persarmenia for them. Except in Fars province. There are some metalsmiths—armorers, mostly—in Persepolis and Pasargadae.”
He cocked his head quizzically. “Why do you ask?”
Belisarius walked over to the table and stared down at the map, scratching his chin. “I ask because the gunpowder weapons Damodara’s army is using are quite a bit more sophisticated than anything I expected them to have.” He gestured with his head toward the east. The sound of the Malwa barrages carried clearly through the leather walls of the tent.
Still scratching his chin, he added: “I thought it might be possible that Damodara established a manufacturing center somewhere in Hyrcania or Khorasan. But that’s not likely, if there are no native craftsmen to draw on. I doubt he would have brought an entire labor force with him all the way from the Gangetic plain. A few experts, maybe. But not the hundreds of skilled workers it would take to manufacture—”
Again, he gestured toward the east wall of the tent. Again, the sound of Malwa rocketry and cannon fire pierced the leather.
A new voice entered the discussion. “It is possible, General Belisarius. He could have set one up at Marv.” Vasudeva rose from a chair in a corner of the tent and ambled toward the table. “Marv is a big enough town, and it’s well located for the purpose.”
Vasudeva reached the table and leaned over, pointing to Marv’s location on the map. His finger then moved east to the river Oxus, and then, following the river’s course, southeast to a spot on the map which bore no markings.
“Right about there is the city of Begram,” said the Kushan general. “The largest Kushan city, after Peshawar. Our kings, in the old days, had their summer palaces at Begram.” A bitter tinge entered his voice. “Peshawar is nothing but ruins, today. But Begram still stands. The Ye-tai did not destroy it, except for the stupas.”
For all the calm in Vasudeva’s voice, Belisarius did not miss the underlying anger—even hatred. When the Ye-tai conquered the Kushan kingdom, a century earlier, they had singled out Buddhism for particularly savage repression. All the monks had been murdered, and the stupas razed to the ground. Like most Kushans Belisarius knew, Vasudeva still considered himself a Buddhist. But it was a faith he practiced in fumbling secret, with no monks or learned scrolls to guide him.
Vasudeva’s finger retraced the route he had indicated a few seconds earlier. “As you can see, travel from Begram to Marv is not difficult. Most of it can be done by river craft.”
“And what’s in Begram?” asked Kurush.
Vasudeva smiled thinly. “Kushans. What else?” The smile faded. “More precisely, Kushan craftsmen. Even in the old days, Begram was the center of artisanship in the Kushan realm. Peshawar was bigger, but it was the royal city. Full of soldiers, courtiers, that sort of thing.” With a chuckle, as dry as the smile: “And a horde of bureaucrats, of course.”
Vasudeva fingered his wispy goatee. “If Damodara had the good sense—if, General Belisarius; the Malwa, as a rule, don’t think of Kushans as anything other than vassal soldiers—he could have easily transplanted hundreds of Kushan craftsmen to Marv. There, he could have built up an armament center. Close enough, as you can see from the map, to supply his army once it passed the Caspian Gates. But far enough away, in a sheltered oasis, to keep it safe from Persian raiders.”