An Oblique Approach

She looked away. "Oh, you've never used the word. But I will. It's what I was. Everyone knows it. Do you think a whore gives a fig for what people say about her?" Another harsh laugh. "Do you understand why the Empress Theodora trusts me? Trusts me, Belisarius. As she trusts no one else. It is because we were both whores, and the only people whores really trust—really trust—are other whores."

For a moment, tears began to come back into her eyes, but she wiped them away angrily.

"I love you like I have never loved anyone else in my life. Certainly more than I love Theodora! I don't even like Theodora, in many ways. But I would not trust you with the knowledge of my bastard son. Yet I trusted Theodora. She knew. And I trusted another whore, Hypatia, to raise the boy." Her voice was like ice. "Do not concern yourself, veteran, about what I feel when people talk about me. You cannot begin to imagine my indifference."

"Then—"

"But I do care what people say about you!"

"Me?" Belisarius laughed. "What will they say about me that they don't already?"

"Idiot," she hissed. "Now they say you married a whore. So they mock your judgment, and your good taste. But they see the whore does not stray from your side, so they—secretly—admire your manhood." Incongruously, she giggled, then mimicked a whispering voice: " `He must be hung like a horse, to keep that slut satisfied.' " The humor vanished. "But now they will call you a cuckold. They will mock you, as well as your judgment. You will become a figure of ridicule. Ridicule, do you hear me?"

Belisarius laughed again. Gaily, to her astonishment.

"I know," he said. "I'm counting on it." He arose and stretched his arms. "Oh, yes, love, I'm counting on it." He mimicked the whispering voice himself: " `What kind of a man would let his wife flaunt her lovers in front of him? Only the most pathetic, feeble, weak, cowardly creature.' " His voice grew hard as steel. "And then word will get to the enemy, and the enemy will ask himself: and what kind of a general could such a man be?"

She looked up at him, startled.

"I hadn't thought of that," she admitted.

"I know. But this is all beside the point. You are lying, Antonina. You don't really care what people say about me, any more than I care what people say about you."

She looked away, her lips tight. For a moment, she was silent. Then, finally, the tears began to flow.

"No," she whispered, "I don't."

"You are afraid I will believe the tales."

She nodded. The tears began pouring. Her shoulders shook. Belisarius sat by her side and enfolded the small woman in his arms.

"I will never believe them, Antonina."

"Yes, you will," she gasped, between sobs. "Yes, you will. Not at once, not soon. Not for years, maybe. But eventually, you will. Or, at least, you will wonder, and suspect, and doubt, and distrust me."

"I will not. Never."

She looked up at him through teary eyes. "How can you be sure?"

He smiled his crooked smile. "You do not really understand me, wife. Not in some ways, at least." His eyes grew distant. "I think perhaps the only person who ever understood me, in this way, was Raghunath Rao. Whom I've never met, except in a vision. But I understand him, kneeling in the woods below Venandakatra's palace, praying with all his heart that the princess he loved would allow herself to be raped by the Vile One. More than allow it—would smile at her defiler and praise his prowess. I, too, would have done the same."

Belisarius took his wife's head in his hands and turned her face toward him.

"Raghunath Rao was the greatest warrior the Maratha produced in centuries. And the Maratha are the great warrior people of India, along with the Rajput. Yet this great warrior, kneeling there, cared nothing for those things warriors care for. Pride, honor, respect—much less virginity and chastity—meant nothing to him. And that is why he was so great a warrior. Because he was not a warrior, at bottom, but a dancer."

Antonina couldn't help laughing. "You're the worst dancer I ever saw!"

Belisarius laughed with her. "True, true." Then, he became serious. "But I am a craftsman. I never wanted to be a soldier, you know. As a boy, I spent all my time at the smithy, admiring the blacksmith. I wanted to be one, when I grew up, more than anything." He shrugged. "But, it was not to be. Not for a boy of my class. So a soldier I became, and then, a general. But I have never lost the craftsman's way of approaching his work."

He smiled. "Do you know why my soldiers adore me? Why Maurice will do anything for me—such as this little trip to Antioch?"

Now on treacherous ground, Antonina kept silent.