The Tide of Victory

Calopodius immediately confirmed the assessment. The boy's face showed no expression at all beyond calm alertness. But his words carried a certain dry humor, under the aristocratic drawl.

"I received excellent marks from both my rhetorician and grammarian, sir."

Belisarius grinned. "Splendid! In that case, you should have no difficulty whatsoever telling Kurush to get down to the river immediately and put a stop to this nonsense."

Calopodius nodded solemnly. "I don't see any difficulty, sir. Be much like the time my mother sent me to instruct my father's sister to quit pestering the stable boys." A moment later, he was gone, spurring his horse into a canter.

"I wonder if Alexander the Great had to put up with this kind of crap," mused Maurice.

"Of course not!" derided Belisarius. "The man was Achilles reborn. Who's going to give Achilles an argument?"

But the retort failed of its purpose. Lowborn or not, Maurice and Agathius were every bit as familiar with the Greek epics as any senator.

"Agamemnon," they chorused in unison.

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Framed

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Chapter 7

Antonina viewed the gadget with some disfavor. Ousanas, with considerably more.

"Romans are madmen," he growled. "Lunatics, pure and simple." He swiveled his head, bringing Ezana under his gaze.

"You are the admiral, Ezana. A seaman, where I am a simple hunter. Explain to this supposedly nautical-minded Roman"—here a fierce glare at John of Rhodes—"the simple truths which even a simpleminded hunter can understand." He flipped his hand toward the gadget, peremptorily, the way a man dismisses an annoying servant. "Like trying to use a lioness for a hunting dog. More likely to bite the master than the prey."

Ezana, like Ousanas, was scowling. But the Ethiopian naval commander's scowl was simply one of thoughtfulness.

"Stick to hunting and statesmanship, aqabe tsentsen," he grumbled. "You're supreme at the first and not an outright embarrassment at the second." He studied the gadget for another few seconds. "Hunting lioness . . ." he murmured. "Not a bad comparison, actually."

Ezana's scowl was suddenly replaced by a cheerful grin. "Not bad! But tell me, Ousanas—what if the lioness were genuinely tame? Or, at least, not quite feral?"

Presented with this outrageous possibility—a tame lioness?—Ousanas practically gurgled with outrage. His usual insouciant wit seemed to have completely deserted him.

"Never seen the man in such a state," commented Antonina slyly. She cocked her head at her companion. "You, Menander?"

But Menander was not about to enter this fray. The expression on his face was that of a man invited to enter a den of lions and argue the fine points of dining etiquette with its denizens. Clearly enough, the young Roman naval officer intended to champion the only safe and logical course. Silence.

Antonina smiled. Sweetly, at Menander; jeeringly, at Ousanas.

"Tame lioness! Not bad!" she exclaimed.

John of Rhodes, the designer of the gadget in question, finally entered the fray himself. His preceding silence, while one of his beloved contraptions was subjected to ridicule, was quite unlike the man. John of Rhodes had once been Rome's most acclaimed naval officer. Forced out of the navy because of his inveterate womanizing—which, alas, included seducing wives of several of his superior officers and visiting senatorial delegates—John had been plucked out of premature retirement by Belisarius and Antonina and put to work designing the new weapons which Aide had brought from the future. Then, as he showed as much energy and ability in that work as he had in his former career, John had found himself once again elevated to high naval rank. Higher, in substance if not in form, than any rank he had previously held. Officially, he was still a captain; in reality, he was the admiral of the Roman Empire's new fleet of gunpowder-armed warships. Its smallest fleet, true, but the only one which was growing by leaps and bounds.

Throughout the course of his checkered career, however, two things about John of Rhodes had remained constant. He was still a womanizer, although—under Antonina's blood-curdling threats—he had managed to keep his attentions away from the wives of Roman officers and Persian notables. And he was perhaps the most dyspeptic man Antonina had ever encountered. His preceding silence, while Ousanas scowled and sneered, was the surest indication that even John of Rhodes was a bit leery of his new invention.

Finally, however, he rallied. "The thing is perfectly safe!" he bellowed. John began stumping about the deck of the warship, gesticulating madly. "I got the idea from Belisarius himself! And none other than Aide gave him the design!" Stump; stump. "For your information, O great hunter from Africa"—here, he and Ousanas matched magnificent sneers—"this device insured the supremacy of Rome at sea for centuries in—in—"