It could almost never be done really successfully. Time after time, throughout the future history which Aide had shown him, Belisarius recognized the same pattern. An army marching through a region, “devastating the land,” and then—not a year later—everything was back again. Half of it, at least. “Mother Nature,” especially when assisted by poor and industrious peasants, was far tougher than any army of soldiers.
In truth, the most successful method was the most ruthless. The method the Mongols would use in Central Asia: kill everyone. Don’t just destroy the irrigation works and the infrastructure, but kill all the people living there as well. Eliminate the labor force which could rebuild what was destroyed.
Those were methods Belisarius would never use. Precious few armies in history ever had. But he had no doubt at all the Malwa would use them in the delta of the Indus. The last order Link would give, after its soldiery destroyed everything they could, was to kill all the peasants living there. The multitude of that poor and humble folk, whose calloused hands were so much better at rebuilding than the sinewy hands of soldiers ever were at destroying. And then heap their corpses atop their own ravaged land, so that their putrefaction could finish the work of destruction.
Malwa’s own peasants. Who would not even be given the one mercy which peasants throughout time had usually been able to expect from their rulers, no matter how tyrannical: to be left alive, that they might be exploited further.
He found his own eyes searching the passing horde, looking for Maurice. A humble fellow himself, Maurice, in his own way. Born into the Thracian peasantry, and, despite his now exalted rank, not given to pretensions. The thought filled Belisarius with a strange, grim satisfaction. The first of the many blows he intended to rain on Malwa would be to send that man to rescue the enemy’s own people.
He had thought Maurice would grumble at the order. Not because of its content, but because of the intricacy of the maneuvers involved. But, for once, the old veteran had not complained. Had not, even, ritually intoned his precious “First Law of Battle.”
“Makes sense,” he had grunted. “We’ll need them for a labor force.” The smile which followed had been almost seraphic. “War’s a stupid, silly business, anyway. So why not turn it completely upside down?”
* * *
Oddly enough, Belisarius did spot Maurice in the horde. And did so in the oddest place.
“Look!” he barked, pointing an accusing finger. “He’s finally going soft on us!”
Sittas’ eyes followed Belisarius’ finger. When he spotted Maurice himself, he burst into laughter. So did Kurush.
“He’ll claim he had to work over some logistics with Agathius,” chortled the Persian general. “You watch! Swear, he will, that only dire necessity forced him into it.”
When Maurice finally came alongside the little rise where Belisarius and Sittas and Kurush were positioned, he glared up at them. Almost down at them, actually, perched as he was in the spacious comfort of Agathius’ howdah atop a great war elephant.
“Had some logistical problems to sort out,” he claimed loudly.
Agathius looked up from the papers he was studying and spotted Belisarius and the others. Then, heaving his crippled but still powerful body erect with a muscular arm on the edge of the open howdah, he grinned. “He’s lying through his teeth,” he shouted. “We’ve spent the whole morning playing with artillery positions, against these different sketches.”
Even without being able to see into the howdah, Belisarius understood what Agathius was talking about. Among the many tasks he had set himself, in the months spent in Ctesiphon planning the Indus expedition, was overseeing the work of a dozen artists-become-draftsmen. Transcribing, onto parchment, Aide’s descriptions of the fortifications of a future world. The designs of fortresses created in Renaissance Italy and Holland, as engineers and architects of the future grappled with the challenge of gunpowder artillery used in sieges.
Engineers and architects—and artists. Michelangelo, who would become famous to later generations as a painter and sculptor, had been famous in his own day as well; primarily, however, as one of Renaissance Italy’s best military architects. He had been the city of Florence’s Commissary General of Fortifications. He had lavished, over many months, as much care and attention on the critical hill of San Miniato as he would the Sistine Chapel, diverting the Mugnone and guiding the stream into a moat, as he would guide a brush; and bestowing San Miniato with as many intricate details—bastions and fascines—as he would a fresco depicting creation.