The Tide of Victory

"Only if you stop making like Cassandra!" boomed Eon. Who, at the moment, looked more like a very large boy than the Ethiopian King of Kings. A scamp and a rascal—royal regalia and vestments be damned. The phakhiolin, as Ethiopians called their version of an imperial tiara, was half-askew on Eon's head.

With a last laugh, Eon stopped the tickling. "Will you relax, woman? Ethiopian sailors have been running the Malwa blockade of Suppara for almost two years now. Every ship in this fleet has half a dozen of those sailors aboard as pilots. They know the entire Maratha coastline like the back of their hand—good weather or bad, rain or shine, day or night."

He went back to lounging against the cannon, and patted the heavy flank of the great engine of war with a thick and powerful hand. "Soon enough—soon enough—we will finally break that blockade. Break it into pieces."

Antonina sighed. Abstractly, she knew that Eon was right. Right, at least, about the dangers of the voyage itself.

A long voyage that had been, and in the teeth of the monsoon's last days. The entire Axumite warfleet had sailed directly across the Erythrean Sea, depending entirely on their own seamanship—and the new Roman compasses which Belisarius had provided them—to make landfall. A voyage which would, in itself, become a thing of Ethiopian legend. Had the negusa nagast not led the expedition personally, many of the Ethiopian sailors might well have balked at the idea.

But, just as Eon and his top officers had confidently predicted weeks before, the voyage had been made successfully and safely. That still left . . .

A voyage, no matter how epic, is one thing. Fighting a successful battle at the end of it, quite another.

Antonina went back to fretting. Again, her eyes were affixed to the view through the foredeck.

"Silly woman!" exclaimed Eon. "We are still hours away. That Malwa fleet at Chowpatty is so much driftwood. Be sure of it!"

Again, for a moment, her fears lightened. Eon's self-confidence was infectious.

To break the Malwa blockade . . . Break it into pieces!

Such a feat, regardless of what happened with Belisarius' assault on the Sind, would lame the Malwa beast. The Maratha rebellion had already entangled the enemy's best army. With Suppara no longer blockaded, the Romans would be able to pour supplies into Majarashtra. Not only would Damodara and Rana Sanga be tied down completely—unable to provide any help to the larger Malwa army in the Indus—but they might very well require reinforcements themselves. Especially if, after destroying the Malwa fleet at Chowpatty which maintained the blockade of Suppara, the Ethiopian fleet could continue on and . . .

That "and" brought a new flood of worries. "It'll never work," Antonina hissed. "I was an idiot to agree to it!"

"It was your idea in the first place," snorted Ousanas.

"Silly woman!" she barked. "What possessed sane and sensible men to be swayed by such a twaddling creature?"

* * *

The Roman army made camp that night eight miles further north of the "battle" ground. North and, thankfully, upwind.

Just before they did so, they came upon the ruins of a peasant village. Bodies were scattered here and there among the half-wrecked huts and hovels.

There was a survivor in the ruins. An old man, seated on the ground, leaning against a mudbrick wall, staring at nothing and holding the body of an old woman in his arms. The woman's garments were stiff with dried blood.

When Belisarius rode up and brought his horse to a halt, the old man looked up at him. Something about the Roman's appearance must have registered because, to Belisarius' surprise, he spoke in Greek. Rather fluent Greek, in fact, if heavily accented. The general guessed that the man had been a trader once, many years back.

"I was in the fields when it happened," the old man said softly. "Far off, and my legs are stiff now. By the time I returned, it was all over."

His hand, moving almost idly, stroked the gray hair of the woman in his arms. His eyes moved back to her still face.

Belisarius tried to think of something to say, but could not. At his side, Maurice cleared his throat.

"What is the name of this village?" he asked.

The old peasant shrugged. "What village? There is no village here." But, after a moment: "It was once called Kulachi."

Maurice pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. "Today, we destroyed the army which did this. And now, as is Roman custom, we seek a name for the victory."

Belisarius nodded. "Quite right," he announced loudly. "The Battle of Kulachi, it was."

Around him, the Roman soldiers who heard growled their satisfaction. The peasant studied them, for a moment, as if he were puzzled.

Then, he shrugged again. "The name is yours, Roman. It means nothing to me anymore." He stroked the woman's hair, again, again. "I remember the day I married her. And I remember each of the days she bore me a child. The children who now lie dead in this place."