Belisarius’ jaws tightened a little. He shared Maurice’s anger at the indiscipline of the Greek cataphracts, and had every intention of chewing on Sittas’ ear about it. But . . .
He sighed heavily. “I suppose it couldn’t have been avoided.” His eyes moved to the right, where what was left of Rohri was being plundered by Sittas’ Constantinople cataphracts. Then, with considerably greater satisfaction, moved on to examine the ordered ranks of his Thracian bucellarii and the Greeks who were under the command of Cyril.
The “old Greeks,” as they were called by the rest of Belisarius’ troops, were the cataphracts who had served with Belisarius in Mesopotamia. Along with the Thracians and the field artillery, they were almost back in formation after the assault which took Rohri. Belisarius would be able to resume his advance with them within the hour.
The others . . .
“Leave them to it,” he growled. “I’ll have words with Sittas later. Not fair to him, really, since he’s been doing his best to rein them in. But he’ll take out his anger at getting reprimanded on his own troops. All the better. Sittas will gore them worse than I would, with his temper up.”
Maurice nodded, stroking his beard. “Then, after Sittas rages at them, you can give them a calm little speech about the need for discipline—if we’re to win this campaign and get ten times more in the way of booty than this piddly little river town provides.”
“Bound to happen, I suppose,” repeated Belisarius. “They’ve been complaining for weeks about the lack of booty. As if our men last year just walked into a treasure room without fighting for months!”
“Well, look on the bright side. The Greeks paid for it, well enough.”
Maurice’s words didn’t bring Belisarius much in the way of satisfaction. True, the enthusiastic assault of Sittas’ cataphracts had overwhelmed the Malwa garrison in Rohri, far quicker than Belisarius could have done with the siegecraft he had been planning to use. And, true also, had thereby gained him more precious days in which to continue outmaneuvering the enemy.
But the cost had been steep. At a rough estimate, he had lost a thousand cataphracts in that pell-mell—and completely impromptu—charge. And he knew he would lose as many afterward to wounds suffered in the course of taking the city. As always, war had been an unpredictable mistress. Gain something, lose something, then shift plans accordingly.
There was no point dwelling on it. And there was this much to be said: at least the “Greek fury” was not producing the atrocities against native civilians which usually accompanied the uncontrolled sacking of a city. Not because the Greeks were restraining themselves—they had already put the entire Malwa garrison to the sword, refusing any and all attempts at surrender—but simply because there were no civilians left in Rohri. The Malwa garrison had already massacred them.
“It’s insane,” snarled Belisarius. “The Malwa are still carrying out their orders long after the situation which called for those orders has changed. No point in a scorched earth policy in the Sind now. We’re already at the gates of the Punjab. They ought to be corralling the populace in order to use them for a labor force themselves.”
Half-gloomily, half with philosophical satisfaction, he studied the ruins of Rohri’s outer fortifications. The only reason the first charge of the Greek cataphracts had broken through, for all its headlong vigor, was that the fortifications had not been completed before the Roman army arrived unexpectedly from the south. The civilians who could have finished the work were dead before it got well underway.
“Insane,” he repeated. Then, shaking his head, looked away and studied the terrain ahead. What was done was done.
“Send a courier to Sittas and tell him to follow us whenever he can get those maniacs back under control. If we wait here for them, we’ll lose the initiative. I think, judging from Abbu’s report and the sound of those guns, that if we move now we can take the good ground on the south bank.”
Maurice nodded, summoned a courier, and gave him the necessary commands. By the time that was done, Belisarius had already set his army into motion.