“Was he hurt?”
Big grin. “Not much. But he had to drink with his left hand for a few days. Couldn’t hold a wine cup in his right, for all the bandages.”
The exercises culminated in a grand maneuver, simulating a full scale battle. The entire regiment of Syrian peasants and their wives formed up at the center, in well spaced formation. Units of Hermogenes’ infantry braced the gaps, acting as a shield for the grenadiers against close assault. Maurice and his cataphracts, in full armor atop their horses, guarded the flanks against cavalry.
Sittas gave the order. The grenadiers hurled a volley. Their sling-cast grenades tore up the soil of the empty terrain a hundred and fifty yards away. The infantry marched forward ten yards, shields and swords bristling. The grenadier squads matched the advance, their wives prepared the next volley, slung. Again the soil was churned into chaos. Again, the infantry strode forward. Again, the grenades.
On the flanks, the cataphracts spread out like the jaws of a shark.
Sittas turned in his saddle, beamed at the Empress.
“Looks marvelous,” murmured the Empress to Antonina. “How will it do in an actual battle, though?”
Antonina shrugged.
“It’ll be a mess, I imagine. Nothing like this tidy business. But I’m not worried about it, Theodora. The enemy won’t be in any better shape.”
Theodora eyed her skeptically.
“Relax, Empress. My husband’s a general, remember. I know all about the First Law of Battle. And the corollary.”
Theodora nodded. “That’s good.” Cold smile: “Especially since you’re now the new commander of this regiment. What are you going to call it, by the way?”
Antonina gaped.
“Come, come, woman. It’s an elite unit. It’s got to have a name.”
Antonina gasped like a fish out of water. “What do you mean—commander?—I’m not a soldier!—I’m—” Wail: “I’m a woman, for the sake of Christ! Who ever heard of a woman—”
The Empress pointed her finger to the grenadiers, like a scepter.
“They have,” she said. Theodora leaned back in the throne, very satisfied. “Besides, Antonina, I wouldn’t trust this new regiment in anyone else’s hands. These new gunpowder weapons are too powerful. You’ll be my last hope, my secret force, when all else fails. I won’t place my life in the hands of a man. Never again.”
The Empress rose.
“I’ll inform Sittas. He’ll bleat, of course, like a lost lamb.”
Coldly, grimly: “Let him. I’ll shear him to the hide.”
Oddly, Sittas did not bleat. Not at all.
“I thought she’d do that,” he confided to Antonina. He was standing next to her, watching the reaction of the crowd to the announcement which the Empress had just made. “Smart woman,” he said approvingly.
Antonina peered at him suspiciously.
“This is not like you,” she muttered. “You’re the most reactionary—”
“Nonsense!” he replied cheerfully. “I’m not reactionary at all. I’m just lazy. The reason I hate new ideas is because they usually require me to do something. Whereas this—”
He beamed upon the peasant grenadiers. Uncertainly, some of them smiled back. Most of them, however, were staring at their new commander. At the few, full-figured inches of her. The men were wide-eyed. Their wives were practically goggling.
“Have fun, girl,” he murmured. “I’d much rather lounge back in the ease of my normal assignment. I could lead cataphract charges in my sleep.”
He turned away, and leaned toward Theodora.
“I think we should call them the Theodoran Cohort,” he announced.
“Splendid idea,” agreed the Empress. “Splendid.”
That night, clustered uneasily in the great hall of the villa, the village elders made clear that they did not think the situation was splendid.
Not at all. None of it.
It was not the name they objected to. The name, so far as they were concerned, was irrelevant.
What they objected to was everything else.
“Who will till the land when they are gone?” whined one of the elders. “The villagers will starve.”
“They will not,” stated Theodora. She loomed over the small crowd of elders. At great effort, her throne had been moved into the villa.
“They will not starve at all. Quite the contrary. Every grenadier in the Theodoran Cohort will receive an annual stipend of twenty nomismata. I will also provide an additional ten nomismata a year for equipment and uniforms. Their wives—the auxiliaries—will receive half that amount.”