Fortune's stroke

Irene finally managed to tear her eyes away from the wall. She started to pour herself another cup of wine, but stopped the motion midway. With a firm hand, she placed the cup back on the table and strode to the window.

Leaning on the ledge, she stared out at the ocean, breathing deeply. She remained there for some time, motionless, until the sunset.

Then, moving back to her chair, she took up the slim volume and began studying her new-found task. She spent the entire evening there, and got her final surprise of the day. For the first time in years, she was not able to concentrate on a book.

– Chapter7

Chapter 7

Persia

Spring, 532 A.D.

"You're right, Maurice," said Belisarius, lowering his telescope. "They'renot going to make a frontal assault."

Maurice grunted. The sound combined satisfaction with regret. Satisfaction, that his assessment had proven correct. Regret, because he wished it were otherwise.

The chiliarch examined the fieldworks below them. From the rise where he and Belisarius were standing, the Roman entrenchments were completely bare to the eye. But from the slope below, where the Rajput cavalry was massed, they would have been almost invisible.

Almost, but not quite. Again, he grunted. This time, the noise conveyed nothing but regret. "Beautiful defenses," he growled. "Damn near perfect. Pure killing ground, once they got into it." His gaze scanned the mountainous terrain around them. "Doesn't look like too bad a slope, not from below. And this is the only decent pass within miles."

Belisarius' eyes followed those of Maurice. This stretch of the Zagros range was not high, measured in sheer altitude, but it was exceptionally rugged. There was little vegetation on the slopes, and those slopes themselves, for all their rocky nature, were slick and muddy from the spring runoff. Little rills and streams could be seen everywhere.

Impossible terrain, for cavalry-except for the one pass in which Belisarius had positioned his army. He had designed his defenses carefully, making sure that their real strength was not visible from the plateau below.

The temptation, for an enemy commander, would be almost overwhelming. A powerful, surging charge-clear the pass-the road to Mesopotamia and its riches would lie wide open. The only alternative would be to continue the grueling series of marches and countermarches which had occupied both the Roman and the Malwa armies for the past several weeks.

Almost overwhelming-for any but the best commanders. Like the ones who, unfortunately, commanded the Malwa forces ranged against them.

"You were right," Belisarius pronounced again. He cocked an eye at his chief subordinate, and smiled his crooked smile. "Think I've gotten sloppy, do you, from dealing with those Malwa thickheads in Mesopotamia?"

Maurice scowled. "I wasn't criticizing, General. It was a good plan. Worth a try. But I didn't think Sanga would fall for it. Lord Damodara might have, on his own. Maybe. But it's been obvious enough, the past month, that he listens to Sanga."

Belisarius nodded. For a moment, his eyes were drawn to a pavilion on the plateau below. The structure was visible to the naked eye. But, even through a telescope, it wasn't much to see.

For two days now, while the Malwa army gathered its forces below the pass, Belisarius had scrutinized that pavilion through his telescope. The distance was too great to discern individual features, but Belisarius had spotted Sanga almost immediately. The Rajput king was one of the tallest men Belisarius had ever met, and he had no doubt of the identity of the towering figure that regularly came and went from the pavilion. Nor of the identity of the short, pudgy man who often emerged from it in Sanga's company.

That would be Lord Damodara, the top commander of the Malwa army in the plateau. One of theanvaya-prapta sachivya, as the Malwa called the hereditary caste that dominated their empire. Blood kin to Emperor Skandagupta himself.

From the moment Belisarius had first seen that pavilion, he had been struck by it. It was nothing fancy, nothing elaborate, and, by Malwa standards, positively austere. The structure was completely unlike the grotesque cotton-and-silk palace which Emperor Skandagupta had erected at the siege of Ranapur. And Belisarius was quite certain that Lord Venandakatra, the anvaya-prapta sachivya whom the Roman general knew best, would have disdained to use it for anything other than a latrine.

Beyond the nature of the pavilion itself, Belisarius had been just as struck-more so, perhaps-by the use to which it was put. In his past experience, Malwa headquarters were the scenes of great pomp and ceremony. Such pavilions-or palaces, or luxury barges-were invariably surrounded by a host of elite bodyguards. Visitors who arrived were accompanied by their own resplendent entourages, and with great fanfare.

Great fanfare. Kettledrums, heralds, banners-even trained animals, prancing their way before the mighty Lords and Ladies of Malwa.