Sanga nodded. “The whole campaign, to my mind, has Belisarius’ signature written all over it. He always tries to force his enemy to attack him, so that he can have the advantage of the defensive. By stalling us for so many months here in the mountains, he’s been able to create a defensive stronghold in Mesopotamia. It’ll be pure murder, trying to storm Peroz-Shapur.”
Narses stared at the two men sitting across the table from him. There seemed to be no expression at all on the eunuch’s wizened, scaly face, but both Damodara and Sanga could sense the sarcasm lurking somewhere inside.
Neither man took offense. They were accustomed to Narses, and his ways, by now. There was a bitterness at the center of the eunuch’s soul which was ineradicable. That bitterness colored his examination of the world, and gave scorn to his every thought.
Thoughts, however—and a capacity to examine—which they had come to respect deeply. And so a kinsman of the Malwa dynasty, and Rajputana’s most noble monarch, listened carefully to the words of a lowborn Roman eunuch.
Narses leaned over and pointed with his finger to a location on the great map which covered the table.
“He will make his stand at Peroz-Shapur, not Ctesiphon,” predicted Narses. “Belisarius is a Roman, when all is said and done. Ctesiphon is Persia’s capital, but Peroz-Shapur is the gateway to the Roman Empire.”
Damodara and Sanga both nodded. They had already come to the same conclusion.
Narses studied the map for a few seconds. Then:
“Tell me something. When the time comes, do you intend to hurl your soldiers at the walls of Peroz-Shapur?” He almost—not quite—sneered. “You don’t have too many Ye-tai left, either, so the soldiers you’ll use up like sheep at a slaughterhouse will all be Rajput.”
Rana Sanga didn’t rise to the bait. He simply chuckled. Damodara laughed outright.
“Not likely!” exclaimed the Malwa lord. He leaned over the table himself. The months of arduous campaigning had shrunk Damodara’s belly enough that the movement was almost graceful.
Damodara’s finger traced the Tigris river, from Ctesiphon upstream toward Armenia.
“I won’t go near Peroz-Shapur.” Another laugh. “Any more than I’d enter a tiger’s cage. I won’t try to besiege Ctesiphon either. I’ll simply use the Tigris to keep my army supplied and move north into Assyria. From there, I can strike into Anatolia—or Armenia—while most of Khusrau’s army is tied up fighting our main force on the southern Euphrates.”
He leaned back, exuding self-satisfaction. “Belisarius will have no choice,” pronounced Damodara. “All that work he’s done to fortify Peroz-Shapur will be wasted. He’ll have to come out and face me, somewhere in the field.”
Narses’ eyes left Damodara and settled on Rana Sanga. The Rajput king nodded his agreement with Damodara’s explication.
“Ah,” said Narses. “An excellent strategy. I am enlightened. Except—why hasn’t Belisarius figured the same thing out himself? The man has never, to put it mildly, been accused of stupidity.”
Silence. Damodara squirmed a bit in his chair. Sanga maintained his usual stiff composure, but the very rigidity of the posture indicated his own discomfort.
Narses sneered. “Ah, yes. You’ve wondered that yourselves, haven’t you? Now and again, at least.”
The eunuch relinquished the sneer, within a few seconds. He was too canny to risk offending the two men across the table from him. And, if the truth be told, he had a genuine respect for them.
“Let’s leave that broad problem, for a moment, and move on to some seemingly minor questions. Of these, there are three that stand out.”
Narses held up a thumb. “First. Why has Belisarius, since the very beginning of this campaign in the Zagros, always been willing to let us move north?”
Narses nodded toward the Rajput. “As Rana Sanga was the first to point out, many weeks ago.” He gave another nod, this time at Damodara. “As you yourself remarked at the time, Lord, that makes no sense. It should be the other way around. He should be fighting like a tiger when we move north, and put up only token resistance when we maneuver to the south. That way, he would be keeping us from threatening Assyria.”
Silence.