In the end, the queen’s soldiers were satisfied. The queen’s plan appealed to their military caution in the present as much as to their political ambitions for the future. They were small and weak, still. By planting their roots in the protected mountains, not exposing them to the peril of the oases and the plains of the Indus, they would lay the basis for the great Buddhist empire which would eventually spread throughout half of Asia. To the north!
* * *
As they made their way back to their tent, Irene still mincing her steps, Kungas allowed the smile to spread across his face. In the darkness, illuminated only by the cookfires and the few lanterns in the market, there was no one to see that unusually open expression on the king’s face.
“That went marvelously well. Tomorrow, of course, you will twist the screw on Baresmanas.”
Irene grimaced. Not at the thought of the next day’s negotiations, but simply because her back now seemed like a sea of fire. “He’ll shriek with agony,” she predicted. “But he’ll still give me the guns.”
* * *
As it happened, Baresmanas did not squeal with pain, because he put up no more than a token resistance.
“Please! Please! I can’t bear the thought of spending so many hours locked in combat.” For a moment, his patrician Aryan face took on a severity which the most rigid Roman paterfamilias would have envied. “Not for myself, of course! Perish the thought. But you are a frail woman, in much pain because of the rigors of the journey. So my chivalrous instincts seem to have overwhelmed me. The guns are yours, Irene. The cannons, at any rate. Khusrau insisted that I hang onto the hand-held firearms.”
“I want half of them as well,” snapped Irene. The pain was making her grouchy. “And three-fourths of the powder and bullets. Your damned dehgans can’t use the things properly anyway—and you know it as well as I do!”
Baresmanas shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I foresaw this. Even warned the emperor!” He sighed again, and shook his head ruefully. “Ah, well. We Aryans have always been noted for our chivalry. I am a pawn in your hands.”
Irene eased herself back into her own chair, again using the pressure of her hands on the armrests to stifle the pain in her spine. Then, smiled cheerfully. “Oh, don’t be so gloomy. Khusrau can hardly punish you very severely, after all. Not with your own daughter being the new Empress of Rome! That might start a new war.”
* * *
Three days later, the entire Kushan army departed Marv, leaving Baresmanas and his Persians in sole possession of the fertile oasis. With them went all of the Kushan artisans whom Lord Damodara had resettled in Marv the year before, in the course of his own campaign in the Persian plateau. The Kushan artisans wanted no part of Aryan rule. The Persians were notorious for their haughty ways.
But, still more, they were fired with enthusiasm for the Kushan cause. Most of them, after all, had come from Begram in the first place. And that city—the largest Kushan city in the world, and the center of Kushan industry and craftsmanship—was where Kungas proposed to march next. March upon it—and take it.
* * *
So, as Irene minced her way toward her horse, the Kushan camp followers and the new artisan families which had joined them cheered her on her way. Even more loudly than the Kushan soldiers, who were themselves cheering.
Before she reached the horse, several Kushan soldiers trotted up bearing a palanquin. They urged her to avail herself of the device—even offered, against all custom, to bear it themselves instead of putting slaves to the purpose.
Irene simply shook her head and minced past them. Behind her back, she could hear the gleeful sounds of the wagers being settled.
“The next time I see Antonina,” she muttered bitterly, under her breath, “I’m going to have some harsh words to say to her on the subject of staring at a horse.”
* * *
Three hours into the march, a party of Kushan women trotted their horses up to ride alongside her. Five of them, there were, all quite young. The oldest was no more than twenty, the youngest perhaps fifteen.