He chuckled again. Delight was still in that sound, but it was warm rather than ecstatic. “I know you, Irene. You would resent me. And what’s worse, you would study books trying to find the answer.”
“Think I couldn’t find it?” she demanded.
She heard his soft laugh, rustling through her hair. Felt the little movement of his chest. Knew the economic subtlety she had come to cherish so. “I don’t doubt you would. But reading takes so much time. I don’t want to wait that long.”
Smiling, she raised her head. The clear brown eyes of Greek nobility, looking past a long and bony nose, stared into eyes of almond, in a flat and barbarous face. “How long, then?” she asked.
Another muted roar swept the pavilion; and then another. But the Kushan’s eyes never left her own. The destruction of Venandakatra’s guns—the rubble of Malwa’s schemes—the salvation of a dynasty—these were meaningless things, in that moment, for those two people embracing on a road.
“First, I must learn to read,” he said. “Not before.” His face was stiff, and solemn, but Irene did not miss the little twitch in his lips.
She smiled. “You are a good student, you know. Amazingly good.”
Kungas’ smile could have been recognized by anyone, now. “With such an incentive, who could fail?”
There was another roar, as a siege gun ruptured; and another. This time, Kungas did look.
“That’s the last of them,” he said. “We must be off, now, before they rally and Venandakatra sends more. We can make the coast, if we don’t dawdle.”
With easy grace, he rose to his feet and extended his hand. A moment later, Irene was standing at his side.
The realities of war had returned. Irene could see the sarwen and the Kushan troops forming their columns in preparation for the forced march to the sea, and the Ethiopian ships waiting there to carry them back to Suppara.
But Kungas did not immediately relinquish his grip on her hand. He took the time to lean over and whisper: “We will know.”
Irene, grinning, squeezed his hand. “Yes. We will always know.”
She burst into laughter, then. Riotous, joy-filled laughter. Ethiopian and Kushan soldiers nearby, hearing that bizarre sound on a bloody battlefield, looked her way.
For a second or two, no more. A woman, her wits frayed by the carnage. Nothing to puzzle over. Women were fragile by nature.
Chapter 19
PERSIA
Summer, 532 a.d.
“Can you disguise the entrance afterward?” asked Belisarius. He waved his hand, in a gesture which encompassed the valley. “The whole area, actually. Keep in mind, Kurush, there’ll be more than ten thousand soldiers passing through here—and as many horses.”
The Roman general turned his head, looking down at the river. The river flowed west by northwest. Like the valley itself, the river was small and rather narrow. The pass where it exited the valley was barely more than a gorge. They were almost in the foothills of the western slope of the Zagros, but the surrounding mountains seemed to have lost none of their usual ruggedness.
“I assume you’ll be taking the horses out that way,” Belisarius said, pointing toward the gorge. “By the time they pass through, the whole valley will be churned into mush. No way to disguise the tracks.”
Kurush shook his head, smiling. “We won’t try to hide the tracks, Belisarius. Quite the opposite! The more Damodara’s mind is on that gorge, the more he’ll be diverted from the real exit.”
Belisarius scratched his chin. “I understand the logic, Kurush. But don’t underestimate Damodara and Sanga—and their scouts. Those Pathan trackers can trail a mouse. They won’t simply trot after the horses, salivating. They’ll search the entire valley.”
Belisarius turned his head and studied the entrance to the qanat. The timber-braced adit was located about a hundred yards up the mountainside, not far from the small river which had carved out this valley. The sloping ramp, after a few feet, disappeared into darkness.
He hooked a thumb in that direction. “There’ll be tracks there too,” he pointed out. “No way to disguise them, either. Even if you collapse the entrance, the tracks will be all over the area. Ten thousand troops leave a big trail.”