Destiny's Shield

Not to mention that I don't have weeks—months!—to waste in Alexandria. I've got to get to the Red Sea, and join forces with the Axumites. By early spring of next year, at the latest.

And the next one, full of anguish: Or my husband, if he's not already, will be a dead man.

But nothing of that anguish showed, in her face. Simply calm resolution.

"No, gentlemen, we've got to win this little civil war quickly."

Ashot tugged his beard and growled. "I'm telling you, it'll be pure slaughter if we try to storm that place."

Antonina waved him down. "Relax, Ashot. I'm not crazy. I have no intention of wasting lives in a frontal attack. But I don't think it's necessary."

Hermogenes, too, was tugging his beard.

"A siege'll take months. A year, probably, unless we get siege guns. That fortress has enough provisions to last that long, easily. And they've got two wells inside the walls."

Antonina shook her head. "I wasn't thinking of a siege, either."

Seeing the confusion in the faces around her, Antonina had to restrain a sigh.

Generals.

"You're approaching the situation upside down," she stated. "This is not really a military problem. It's political."

To Ashot: "Weren't you the one who was telling me, just yesterday, that the reason Ambrose couldn't intervene while we were suppressing the mob was because he needed the day to win over his troops?"

The commander of her Thracian bucellarii nodded.

She grinned. "Well, he's had a day. Just how solid do you think he's made himself? With his troops?"

Frowning.

Generals.

She pointed at the fortress. "How long have those men—the soldiers, I mean—been stationed here? Hermogenes?"

The young merarch shrugged.

"Years. Most of the garrison—the troops, anyway—spend their entire term of service in Egypt. Even units that get called out for a campaign elsewhere are always rotated back here."

"That's what I thought. Now—another question. Where do those men live? Not in the fortress, I'm sure. Years of service, you said. That means wives, children, families. Outside businesses, probably. Half of those soldiers—at least half—will have married into local families. They'll have invested their pay in their father-in-laws' shops. Bought interests in grain-shipping."

"The whole bit," grumbled Ashot. "Yeah, you're right. Fucking garritroopers. Always takes weeks to shake 'em down on a campaign. Spend the first month, solid, wailing about their declining property values back home."

The light of understanding came, finally, to her officers.

Or so, at least, she thought.

"You're right, Antonina!" cried Hermogenes excitedly. "That'll work!"

He cast eager eyes about, scanning the immediate environment of the fortress. "Most of 'em probably live right here, right in Nicopolis. We'll start by burning everything to the ground. Then—"

"Find their wives and daughters," chipped in his executive officer, Callixtos. "Track 'em down wherever they are and—"

"Won't need to," countered Ashot. "Any women'll do. At this distance, the garrison won't be able to make out faces anyway. Just women being stripped naked in the street with us waving our dicks around and threatening to—"

Antonina erupted. "Stupid generals!"

Startled, her horse twitched. Antonina drew back on the reins savagely. Wisely, the horse froze.

"Cretins! Idiots! Morons—absolute morons—the whole lot! You want me to end a small civil war by starting a big one? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

They shrank from her hot eyes. Antonina turned in her saddle and transferred the glare back to Menander.

"You! Maybe you're not too old to have lost all your wits! Maybe. How would you handle it?"

For a moment, Menander was too stunned to speak. Then, clearing his throat, he said, "Well. Well. Actually, while you were talking I was thinking about how the general—Belisarius, I mean—handled the situation with the Kushans. The second situation with the Kushans, I mean—not the first one where he tricked Venandakatra out of using them as guards—but the other one, where he—well, they were guarding us but didn't know the Empress—Shakuntala, I mean, not Theodora—was hidden in—well."

He stopped, floundering. Drew a deep, shaky breath.

"What I mean is, I was struck by it at the time. How the general used honey instead of vinegar."

Antonina sighed. Relaxed, a bit.

"You're promoted," she growled. "Tribune Men-ander, you are."

The eyes which she now turned on her assembled officers were no longer hot.

Oh, but they were very, very cold.

"Here—is—what—you—will—do. You will find the wives and daughters—and the sons and fathers and mothers and brothers and for that matter the second cousins twice-removed—of those soldiers forted up in that place."

Deep breath. Icy cold eyes.