The Tide of Victory

The Roman army, throughout the centuries, had never favored the war elephants which so many of their opponents had treasured. True, the monsters could be ferocious in battle. But they could often wreak as much havoc in their own army as in the enemy's. Still, Belisarius had brought a number of the great beasts with him on this expedition. He had no intention of actually using them in combat. But the elephants could bear officers in howdahs, after all, along with the maps and charts and documents needed for the huge army's staff. Why waste the mind of a man like Agathius by perching him on a saddle for weeks? When the same man, even though crippled, could spend those weeks of marching engaged in the same crucial work he had overseen for months?

So, Belisarius did not join in the badinage. After a few seconds, he blocked it out of his mind entirely and returned to his study of the army passing before him.

What a hodge-podge! he thought, half-ruefully and half-cheerfully. War elephants from ancient armies, plodding alongside men armed with our version of the Sharps rifle of the American Civil War. And look over there, Aide—a mitrailleuse in a chariot! I swear they found that relic in some Sumerian vault.

It'll work, came the serene thought in reply. You'll make it work.

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Framed

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Chapter 12

AJMER

Summer, 533 A.D.

"Be careful," murmured Kujulo. "This city has changed."

Valentinian and Anastasius swept the streets of Ajmer with their eyes, shielded under lowered helmets. Neither of them had ever been in the largest city in Rajputana, so they had no basis for comparison.

"What's different?" asked Valentinian softly. He reached up his hand and scratched the back of his neck idly. The casual gesture exuded the weariness of a caravan guard finally reaching his destination after a long and arduous trek. Meanwhile, not casually at all, his eyes kept scouring the vicinity.

"This is not a Rajput city any longer," replied Kujulo. "Not really. Look there, for instance—down the street, to the left."

Without moving their heads, Valentinian and Anastasius looked in that direction. Valentinian couldn't really see much, since he was riding at the head of the caravan to Kujulo's right. But Anastasius, riding to the Kushan's left, had a clear view into the street in question—which was really more in the way of an alley.

"Mangy pack of dogs," he muttered. "But a big pack, too." A moment later, yawning, he added: "And you're right about that much. If any of those sorry bastards are Rajputs, I'd be astonished. I don't think I've ever seen a Rajput with as much filth all over him—not even after a battle—as any of that lot have on their feet alone."

The slowly moving caravan was now passing the mouth of the alley, and Valentinian was finally able to get a good look.

" `Dogs' is an insult to dogs. But—" He paused, until the alley was behind them. "They're hungry-looking, I give you that."

Anastasius and Valentinian now both looked to Kujulo. The "leadership structure" of their peculiar expedition was a fluid thing. Sometimes one, then another, of the three men in command had taken the lead over the weeks since they landed in the delta and made their slow way into Rajputana. Usually either Valentinian or Anastasius. But now that they had arrived at Ajmer, both of the Roman cataphracts were clearly willing to let Kujulo guide them.

This unfamiliar and exotic city was terra incognita to them. So too, of course, had been the Thar desert and the Aravalli mountains. But rough terrain, whatever its specific features, is much the same in many places—and both Anastasius and Valentinian were veterans of marches across such. Usually as part of an army, true, rather than a merchant caravan. But the experience had not been especially foreign. Neither, certainly, had been the two brief skirmishes with bandits.

Ajmer, however, was a different matter. Here, the "terrain" was not so much geographic as human. And neither of them knew anything about the customs and habits which characterized the city.

Kujulo immediately made clear that he was something of a novice, also. Or, it might be better to say, a man who returns to a place he had known years earlier, and finds it has been completely transformed.

"In the old days," he growled, "no gang like that would have dared lounge openly in the streets of Ajmer. Rajput women would have driven them off, sent them scampering back into their hovels."

"I'm pretty sure there's another pack in that alley up ahead," murmured Valentinian. "A more lively bunch, seems like. At least judging from the way their lookout ducked back into the alley when I spotted him."