An Oblique Approach

Hiss.

Belisarius never turned his head. Just smiled. Crookedly, at first, then broadly.

Well, maybe Maurice is right. God help the Mede who tries to get in my way, that's for sure.

Once he reached the fortified camp at the center of the Roman lines, Belisarius dismounted and entered through the small western gate. Valentinian and Anastasius chose to remain outside. It was too much trouble to dismount and remount, and there was no way to ride a horse into that camp.

The camp was nothing special, in itself. It had been hastily erected in one day, and consisted of nothing much more than a ditch backed up by an earthen wall. Normally, such a wall would have been corduroyed, but there were precious few logs to be found in that region. To some degree, the soldiers had been able to reinforce the wall with field stones. Where possible, they had placed the customary cervi—branches projecting sideways from the wall—but there were few suitable branches to be found in that barren Syrian terrain. Some of the more far-sighted and enterprising units had brought sharpened stakes with them to serve the purpose, but the wall remained a rather feeble obstacle. A pitiful wall, actually, by the traditional standards of Roman field fortifications.

But Belisarius was not unhappy with the wall. Not, not in the slightest. Quite the contrary. He wanted the Persian scouts to report to Firuz that the Roman fortification at the center of their lines was a ramshackle travesty.

The real oddity about the camp was not the camp itself but its population density—and the peculiar position of its inhabitants. Some Roman infantrymen were standing on guard behind the wall, as one might expect. The great majority, however, were lying down behind the wall and in the shallow trenches which had been dug inside the camp. The camp held at least four times as many soldiers as it would appear to hold, looking at it from the Persian side.

Belisarius heard the cornicens blaring out a ragged tune. Very ragged, just as he had instructed. As if the men blowing those horns were half-deranged with fear. The soldiers standing visible guard began acting out their parts.

As Belisarius watched, the infantry chiliarch of the Army of Lebanon trotted up. Hermogenes was grinning from ear to ear.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Belisarius smiled. "Well, they're certainly throwing themselves into their roles. Although I'm not sure it's really necessary for so many of them to be tearing at their hair. Or howling quite so loud. Or shaking their knees and gibbering."

Hermogenes' grin never faded.

"Better too much than too little." He turned and admired the thespian display. By now, the soldiers at the wall were racing around madly, in apparent confusion and disorder.

"Don't overdo it, Hermogenes," said Belisarius. "The men might get a little too far into it and forget it's just an act."

The chiliarch shook his head firmly.

"Not a chance. They're actually quite enthusiastic about the coming battle."

Belisarius eyed him skeptically.

"It's true, General. Well—maybe `enthusiastic' is putting it a little too strongly. Confident, let's say."

Belisarius scratched his chin. "You think? I'd have thought the men would be skeptical of such a tricky little scheme."

Hermogenes stared at the general. Then said, very seriously, "If any other general had come up with it, they probably would. But—it's Belisarius' plan. That's what makes the difference."

Again, the skeptical eye.

"You underestimate your reputation, general. Badly."

Belisarius began to say that the scheme wasn't actually his. He had taken it from Julius Caesar, who had used hidden troops in a fortified camp in one of his many battles against the Gauls. But before he could utter more than two words, he fell silent. One of the sentries at the wall was shouting. A genuine alert, now, not a false act.

Belisarius raced to the wall and peered over. Hermogenes joined him an instant later.

The Persians were advancing.

Belisarius studied the Mede formation intently. It was impressive, even—potentially—terrifying. As Persian armies always were.

An old thought caused a little quirk to come to the general's lips.