Antonina stared grimly back at him. Unyielding.
“And so? I understand your point, Anthony. But I say again—so?”
Her shrug was enough to break the Bishop’s heart. It was not a woman’s shrug, but the gesture of a veteran.
“That’s war, Cassian. You do the best you can against the enemy, knowing he fully intends to return the favor. One of you wins, one of you loses. Dies, usually.”
A thin smile came to her face.
“Belisarius—Maurice, too, I think my husband got it from him—has a saying about it. He calls it the First Law of Battle. Every battle plan gets fucked up—pardon my language, Bishop—as soon as the enemy arrives. That why he’s called the enemy.”
Cassian stroked his beard. There was weariness in the gesture, but some humor also.
“Crude, crude,” he murmured. “Altogether coarse. Refined theologians would express the matter differently. Every sound doctrine gets contradicted, as soon as the other dogmatists arrive at the council. That’s why they’re called the heretics.”
Finally, he smiled.
“Very well, Antonina. I cannot stop you, in any event. I will give you all the assistance which I can.”
He resumed his seat. Then, after staring at his plate for a moment, pulled it back before him and began eating with his usual gusto.
“Won’t be much, when it comes to military matters and Hippodrome factions.” He waved his knife cheerfully. “Church conspirators, on the other hand—and there’ll be plenty of them, be sure of it!—are a different matter altogether.”
He speared two dates.
“Glycerius of Chalcedon and George Barsymes, is it?”
The dates disappeared as if by magic. He skewered a pear.
“Rufinus Namatianus, Bishop of Ravenna,” he mumbled thoughtfully, his mouth full of shredding fruit. “Know’m well.”
The last piece of pear sped down his throat, like a child down the gullet of an ogre.
“Babes in the woods,” he belched.
After the generals returned, at sundown, Antonina listened to their ranting and raving for half an hour. Tact and diplomacy, she thought, required as much.
Then she made her ruling.
“Of course they won’t live in barracks. The idea’s absurd. These men aren’t conscripts, gentlemen. They’re volunteers—established farmers, with families. They marry early here, and start raising children by the time they’re fifteen. Younger, the girls.”
The generals gobbled. John of Rhodes began to stump. Antonina examined them curiously.
“What did you expect? Did you think these men would abandon their families—just to be your grenade-tossers?”
Gobbling ceased. Generals stared at other. A naval officer stumbled in his stumping.
Antonina snorted.
“You didn’t think.”
Snort. “Sometimes I agree with Theodora. Men.”
Sittas leveled his finest glare upon her. The boar in full fury.
“You’ll not be making any royal decrees here, young woman!”
“I most certainly will,” replied Antonina, quite sweetly. “I’m the paymaster, remember?”
She cocked her head at John of Rhodes. “Are you done with your stumping?”
The naval officer pouted. Antonina reached to the floor, hauled up a sack, clumped it on the table.
“Hire workmen, John. Better yet—pay the peasants themselves. The lads are handy with their hands. They’ll have the huts up in no time, and they’ll be the happier for having made their own new homes.”
From the doorway came Michael’s voice:
“They’ll be wanting a chapel, too. Nothing fancy, of course.”
The generals, cowed by the woman, transferred their outrage to the monk.
The Macedonian stared back. Like a just-fed eagle stares at chittering mice.
Contest of wills, laughable.
Chapter 10
KAUSAMBI
Summer 530 ad
From the south bank of the Jamuna, Belisarius gazed at the temple rising from the very edge of the river on the opposite bank. It was sundown, and the last rays of the setting sun bathed the temple in golden glory. He was too distant to discern the details of the multitude of figurines carved into the tiered steps of the temple, but he did not fail to appreciate the beauty of the structure as a whole.
“What a magnificent temple,” he murmured. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Menander’s lips tighten in disapproval.
For a moment, he thought to let it go, but then decided it was a fine opportunity to advance the young cataphract’s education.