Fortune's Stroke

Still scratching his chin, he added: "I thought it might be possible that Damodara established a manufacturing center somewhere in Hyrcania or Khorasan. But that's not likely, if there are no native craftsmen to draw on. I doubt he would have brought an entire labor force with him all the way from the Gangetic plain. A few experts, maybe. But not the hundreds of skilled workers it would take to manufacture—"

Again, he gestured toward the east wall of the tent. Again, the sound of Malwa rocketry and cannon fire pierced the leather.

A new voice entered the discussion. "It is possible, General Belisarius. He could have set one up at Marv." Vasudeva rose from a chair in a corner of the tent and ambled toward the table. "Marv is a big enough town, and it's well located for the purpose."

Vasudeva reached the table and leaned over, pointing to Marv's location on the map. His finger then moved east to the river Oxus, and then, following the river's course, southeast to a spot on the map which bore no markings.

"Right about there is the city of Begram," said the Kushan general. "The largest Kushan city, after Peshawar. Our kings, in the old days, had their summer palaces at Begram." A bitter tinge entered his voice. "Peshawar is nothing but ruins, today. But Begram still stands. The Ye-tai did not destroy it, except for the stupas."

For all the calm in Vasudeva's voice, Belisarius did not miss the underlying anger—even hatred. When the Ye-tai conquered the Kushan kingdom, a century earlier, they had singled out Buddhism for particularly savage repression. All the monks had been murdered, and the stupas razed to the ground. Like most Kushans Belisarius knew, Vasudeva still considered himself a Buddhist. But it was a faith he practiced in fumbling secret, with no monks or learned scrolls to guide him.

Vasudeva's finger retraced the route he had indicated a few seconds earlier. "As you can see, travel from Begram to Marv is not difficult. Most of it can be done by river craft."

"And what's in Begram?" asked Kurush.

Vasudeva smiled thinly. "Kushans. What else?" The smile faded. "More precisely, Kushan craftsmen. Even in the old days, Begram was the center of artisanship in the Kushan realm. Peshawar was bigger, but it was the royal city. Full of soldiers, courtiers, that sort of thing." With a chuckle, as dry as the smile: "And a horde of bureaucrats, of course."

Vasudeva fingered his wispy goatee. "If Damodara had the good sense—if, General Belisarius; the Malwa, as a rule, don't think of Kushans as anything other than vassal soldiers—he could have easily transplanted hundreds of Kushan craftsmen to Marv. There, he could have built up an armament center. Close enough, as you can see from the map, to supply his army once it passed the Caspian Gates. But far enough away, in a sheltered oasis, to keep it safe from Persian raiders."

He's right! said Aide to Belisarius. Marv would be perfect. The Seleucids walled the city eight hundred years ago. The whole oasis, actually. The Sassanids made it a provincial capital and a military center after they conquered the western part of the Kushan Empire. And Marv will become—would have become—the capital of Khorasan province after the Islamic conquest.

The Persian officers were staring at Vasudeva as if he were babbling in an unknown tongue. One of them turned his head and muttered to another: "I've never thought of Kushans as anything but soldiers."

Vasudeva heard the remark. His smile returned. It was a very thin smile.

"Nobody does," he said. "The fact remains that Kushans have been skilled artisans for centuries. Appearances to the contrary, we aren't barbarian nomads." He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. "My father was a very good jeweler. I wanted to follow in his footsteps. But the Malwa had other plans for me."

Belisarius felt a sudden rush of empathy for the stocky Kushan mercenary. He, as a boy, had wanted to be a blacksmith rather than a soldier. Until the demands of his class, and Rome, decreed otherwise.

"Damodara is smart enough," he mused. He leaned back from the table. "More than smart enough."

Belisarius began slowly pacing around. His softly spoken words were those of a man thinking aloud. "If he had good enough intelligence, that is. The Malwa spymaster, Nanda Lal, is a capable man—very capable—but I never got the sense, in the many days I spent in his company, that he thought much about manufacturing and artisanry. His orientation seemed entirely political and military. So where would Damodara have learned—?"

Narses!

"Narses," snarled Maurice. "He's got that stinking traitor working for him."