He stared to the south, where a guilty army was bleeding its punishment. “But this day? It means nothing to me. So, yes, you may have the name. I no longer need it.”
On the way out of the village, several soldiers left some food with the old man. He seemed to pay no attention. He just remained there, stroking a memory’s hair.
* * *
Aide did not speak for some time thereafter. Then, almost like an apology:
If you had been a blacksmith, this would have happened also. Ten times over, and ten times worse.
Belisarius shrugged. I know that, Aide. And tomorrow the knowledge will mean something to me. But today? Today it means nothing. I just wish I could have been a blacksmith.
Chapter 28
CHOWPATTY
Autumn, 533 a.d.
Just after daybreak, the first Malwa ship at Chowpatty was sunk by ramming. Unfortunately, the maneuver was completely unplanned and badly damaged an Ethiopian warship in the process. Coming through the pouring rain into the bay where the Malwa kept their fleet during the monsoon season, the lead Ethiopian warship simply ran over the small Malwa craft stationed on picket duty.
The Malwa themselves never saw it coming. The crew—exhausted by the ordeal of keeping a small ship at sea during bad weather—had been preoccupied with that task. They had no lookouts stationed. The thought that enemy warships might be in the area didn’t even occur to them.
As it was, they considered their own commander a lunatic, and had cursed him since they left the docks. Nobody, in those days, tried to actually “maintain a blockade” during the stormy season. The era when English warships would maintain year-round standing blockades of French ports was in the far distant future.
In times past, once the monsoon came, the Malwa fleet blockading Suppara had simply retired to the fishing town of Chowpatty further south along the coast, which the Malwa had seized and turned into their naval base. There, for months, the sailors would enjoy the relative peace and pleasures of the grimy town which had emerged on the ruins of the fishing village. The fishermen were long gone, fled or impressed into labor. Those of their women who had not managed to escape had been forced into the military brothels, if young enough, or served as cooks and laundresses.
But this monsoon season had been different. The Malwa ruler of southern India—Lord Venandakatra, Goptri of the Deccan—had always been a foul-tempered man. As the strength of the Maratha rebellion had grown, he had become downright savage. Not all of that savagery was rained down upon the rebels. His own subordinates came in for a fair portion of it.
So . . . the Malwa commander of the Suppara blockade had taken no chances. As preposterous and pointless as it might be, he would keep one ship stationed at sea at all times. Lest some spy of Venandakatra report to the Goptri that the blockade was being managed in a lackadaisical manner—and the commander find himself impaled as several other high-ranked officers had been in the past. Their flayed skins hung from the ceiling of the audience chamber of the Goptri’s palace in Bharakuccha.
* * *
The Ethiopian ship did have a lookout posted in the bow. But he, too, had not been expecting to encounter enemy ships at sea. He had been concentrating his attention—with his ears more than his eyes—on spotting the first signs of approaching landfall. So he didn’t see the Malwa vessel until it was too late to do anything but shout a last-minute warning.
Seconds later, the Ethiopian seaman died. When the prow of the Axumite craft struck the Malwa vessel amidships, he was flung from his roost into the enemy ship and broke his neck against the mast. His body then flopped onto two Malwa sailors huddling next to the mast, seeking shelter from the rain. Panic-stricken, the sailors heaved his corpse aside.
They had good reason to panic. The Ethiopian ship was not only heavier and larger, its bow was designed to serve as a platform for cannons. The hull structure was braced to support weight and withstand recoil. The small Malwa craft, on the other hand, was nothing more than a small fishing boat refitted as a warship. Even that “refitting” amounted to nothing more than mounting a few rocket troughs along the side.