In the Heart of Darkness

She shrugged. "So, in the end, I was able to give Balban every detail of the doings of the Hippodrome factions. And I still don't know why the Malwa—"

"I don't think it's so odd, Antonina," interrupted Cassian. "There must be twenty or thirty thousand of those bravos in Constantinople. Not an insignificant military force, potentially."

Antonina snickered.

"Hippodrome thugs? Be serious, Anthony. Oh, to be sure, they're a rough enough crowd in the streets. But against cataphracts? Besides, they're about evenly divided between the Blues and the Greens. More likely to whip on each other than do any Malwa bidding."

The bishop rubbed two fingers together, in the ancient gesture for coin.

Antonina cocked her head quizzically.

"That's Irene's opinion, too. But I think she's overestimating the strength of the factions, even if the Malwa can unite them with bribes." She shook her head. "Enough of that. At least now the Malwa are demanding some sensible secrets from me. By the time I get back to Constantinople, a few months from now, I'm to provide them with a detailed breakdown of all the military units in the east. All of them—not just here in Syria, but in Palestine as well. Even Egypt." She grinned. "Or else."

Cassian stared at her, still unsmiling. Antonina's grin faded away.

"It's that `or else' you're worried about, isn't it?"

Cassian took a deep breath, exhaled. "Actually, no. At least, not much."

He rose from the table and began pacing slowly about the dining room.

"I'm afraid you don't really grasp my fear, Antonina. I agree with you about the Malwa, as it happens. For now, at least, they will do you no harm at all."

Antonina frowned. "Then what—"

It was Anthony's turn to throw up his hands with exasperation.

"Can you possibly be so naive? There are not simply Malwa involved in this plot, woman! There are Romans, also. And they have their own axes to grind—grind against each other's blades, often enough."

He stepped to the table, planted his pudgy hands firmly, and leaned over.

"You have placed yourself in a maelstrom, Antonina. Between Scylla and Charybdis—and a multitude of other monsters!—all of whom are plotting as much against their conspirators as they are against the Roman Empire." He thrust himself back upright. "You have no idea where the blade might come from, my dear. No idea at all. You see only the Malwa. And only the face they turn toward you."

Antonina stared grimly back at him. Unyielding.

"And so? I understand your point, Anthony. But I say again—so?"

Her shrug was enough to break the Bishop's heart. It was not a woman's shrug, but the gesture of a veteran.

"That's war, Cassian. You do the best you can against the enemy, knowing he fully intends to return the favor. One of you wins, one of you loses. Dies, usually."

A thin smile came to her face.

"Belisarius—Maurice, too, I think my husband got it from him—has a saying about it. He calls it the First Law of Battle. Every battle plan gets fucked up—pardon my language, Bishop—as soon as the enemy arrives. That why he's called the enemy."

Cassian stroked his beard. There was weariness in the gesture, but some humor also.

"Crude, crude," he murmured. "Altogether coarse. Refined theologians would express the matter differently. Every sound doctrine gets contradicted, as soon as the other dogmatists arrive at the council. That's why they're called the heretics."

Finally, he smiled.

"Very well, Antonina. I cannot stop you, in any event. I will give you all the assistance which I can."

He resumed his seat. Then, after staring at his plate for a moment, pulled it back before him and began eating with his usual gusto.

"Won't be much, when it comes to military matters and Hippodrome factions." He waved his knife cheerfully. "Church conspirators, on the other hand—and there'll be plenty of them, be sure of it!—are a different matter altogether."

He speared two dates.

"Glycerius of Chalcedon and George Barsymes, is it?"

The dates disappeared as if by magic. He skewered a pear.

"Rufinus Namatianus, Bishop of Ravenna," he mumbled thoughtfully, his mouth full of shredding fruit. "Know'm well."

The last piece of pear sped down his throat, like a child down the gullet of an ogre.

"Babes in the woods," he belched.

After the generals returned, at sundown, Antonina listened to their ranting and raving for half an hour. Tact and diplomacy, she thought, required as much.

Then she made her ruling.

"Of course they won't live in barracks. The idea's absurd. These men aren't conscripts, gentlemen. They're volunteers—established farmers, with families. They marry early here, and start raising children by the time they're fifteen. Younger, the girls."

The generals gobbled. John of Rhodes began to stump. Antonina examined them curiously.