The Tide of Victory

"I know I did. Doesn't mean I have to like it." He raised a thick hand, as a man forestalls an unwanted lecture. "And please don't jabber at me again about Morgarten and Laupen and Morat and all those other heathen-sounding places where your precious Swiss pikemen of the future stood their ground against cavalry. I'm sick of hearing about it."

Sittas' voice slipped into an imitation of Belisarius' baritone. " `As long as the gunmen are braced with solid infantry to protect them while they reload, they'll butcher any cavalry that comes against them.' Fine, fine, fine. I won't argue the point. Although I will point out"—here Sittas' tone grew considerably more enthusiastic—"that's only true as long as the infantry doesn't break and run. Which damn few infantry don't, when they see cataphracts thundering down on them."

Aide's voice came again. Stubborn as a mule. Best give him a stroke or two. Or he'll sulk for the rest of the day.

Belisarius had reached the same conclusion. His next words were spoken perhaps a bit hastily. "I'm certainly not arguing that cavalry isn't irreplaceable. Nothing like it for routing the enemy and completing their destruction—after their formations have been broken."

So did Belisarius pass the next hour or so, with Aide grousing in his mind and Sittas grumbling in his ear, extolling the virtues of cavalry under the right circumstances. By the time Maurice and Agathius arrived with a supply problem which needed Belisarius' immediate attention, Sittas seemed to be reasonably content.

Have to do it all over again tomorrow, concluded Aide sourly.

* * *

Sittas rode off less than a minute after Agathius began explaining the problem. The big Greek nobleman's enthusiasm for logistics paralleled his enthusiasm for infantry tactics.

How did he ever win any campaigns, anyway? demanded Aide.

Belisarius was about to reply. But Maurice, as if he'd somehow been privy to the private mental exchange, did it for him.

The Thracian cataphract, born a peasant, gazed after the departing aristocratic general. Perhaps oddly, his face was filled with nothing more than approval. "Still trying to make him happy? Waste of time, lad, until Sittas has had a battle or two under his belt. But at least we won't have to worry about him breaking under the lesson. Not Sittas. If there's a more belligerent and ferocious general in the world, I don't know who it is. Besides, who really knows the future anyway? Maybe Sittas will lead one of his beloved cavalry charges yet."

* * *

By midafternoon, Agathius' problem was well on the way to solution. Agathius had only brought the problem to Belisarius because the difficulty was purely social, rather than technical, and he felt the commanding general needed to take charge. Some of the Persian dehgans were becoming vociferously indignant. Their mules, laden with burdens which were far too heavy for them, were becoming indignant themselves. Mules, unlike horses, cannot be driven beyond a certain point. The Persian mules reached that point as soon as the sun reached the zenith, and had promptly gone on what a future world would have called a general strike. And done so, moreover, with a solidarity which would have won the unadulterated approval of the most doctrinaire anarcho-syndicalist.

Even Persian dehgans knew that beating mules was pointless. So, turning upon less redoubtable opponents, they were demanding that room be made for their necessities in the supply barges which were streaming down the Tigris. The Mesopotamian and Greek sailors who manned those craft—no fools, they—steadfastly ignored the shouted demands of the dehgans on the banks and kept their barges a safe distance from the shore. So—

"They've been hollering at me for two hours, now," grumbled Agathius. "I'm getting tired of it."

Dehgans! grumbled Aide. Only thing in the world that can make Greek noble cataphracts seem like sentient creatures.

Belisarius turned to one of his couriers. For a moment, he hesitated. In campaigns past, Belisarius had always used veteran professionals for his dispatch riders. But on this campaign, he had felt it necessary to use young Greek nobles. Partly, to mollify the sentiments of the Roman empire's aristocracy, which was slowly becoming reconciled to the Justinian dynasty. But, mostly, to mollify the Persian aristocracy, which would take umbrage at orders transmitted to them by a commoner.

This particular dispatch rider was named Calopodius. He was no older than seventeen, and came from one of the Roman empire's most notable families. Belisarius had, tentatively, formed a good opinion of the boy's wits and tact. Both of which would be needed here.