Belisarius - Destiny's Shield Part 4

"And what position do you advance, in these occasional disputes?" queried Justinian.

"You know perfectly well my position," snapped Michael.

The former emperor smiled. Justinian adored theological discussion. Other than Theodora's care, it had been the company of Michael and Patriarch Ca.s.sian which, more than anything, had enabled him to find his way through the darkness of the soul, in the months after his blinding.

"My opinion on the Trinity is orthodox, in the same way as Anthony's," stated Michael. "Though more plainly put." He snorted. "My friend Anthony Ca.s.sian is Greek, and is therefore not satisfied with simple truth until he can pa.r.s.e it with clever Greek syllogisms and make it dance to dialectical Greek tunes. But I am not Greek. I am Macedonian. True, we are a related people. But to the Greeks G.o.d gave his intellect, and to us he gave his common sense."

Here, a wintry smile. "This, of course, is why the great Philip of my ancestry lost his patience and decided to subdue the whole fractious lot of quarreling southron. And why his son, the Macedonian Alexander, conquered the world."

"So the Greeks could inherit it," quipped Justinian.

"Place them in charge of the order, then," said Belisarius. "And find women with similar talents. There must be some."

Michael stroked his great beard. "Yes," he said, after a moment's thought. "Two, in particular, come immediately to mind. Juliana Syagrius and Helen of Armenia."

"Juliana Syagrius?" demanded Justinian. "The widow of-?"

Michael nodded. "The very same. Not all of my followers are common folk, Justinian. Any number of them are from the n.o.bility-although usually from the equestrian order. Juliana is the only member of the senatorial cla.s.ses who has responded to my teachings. She has even offered to place her entire fortune at my disposal."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Justinian. "She's one of the richest people in the empire!"

Michael glared. "I am well aware of that, thank you! And what am I supposed to do with it? I have lived on alms since I was a youth-a habit I have no intention of changing."

The sour look on his face made plain the monk's att.i.tude toward wealth. He began to mutter various phrases concerning camels and the eye of a needle. Unkind phrases. Very unkind phrases, in point of fact.

Belisarius interrupted the gathering storm.

"You will use that fortune to buy arms and armor, Michael. And the provisions needed to support your new order."

"They will beg for their support, d.a.m.n them!" snapped Michael. "Just as I do!"

Belisarius shook his head. "They will be too busy. Much too busy." The general smiled-broadly, not crookedly. "Yours will be a religious order of a new kind, Michael. A military order."

A name flashed through the general's mind.

"We will call them the Knights Hospitaler," he said, leaning forward in his chair.

Guided by Aide through the labyrinth of future history, Belisarius began to explain.

After Michael was gone, hurrying his way out of the Great Palace, Justinian sighed. "It will not work, Belisarius. Oh, to be sure, at first-" The former emperor, veteran of intrigue and maneuver, shook his head sadly. "Men are sinners. In time, your new monks will simply become another lot of ambitious schemers, grasping for anything in sight."

Image. A magnificent palace. Through its corridors, adorned with expensive statuary and tapestries, moved men in secretive discourse. They wore tunics-still white, with a simple red cross. But the tunics were silk, now, and the hilts of the swords suspended from their scabbards were encrusted with gems.

"True," replied Belisarius. His voice lost none of its good cheer. "But they will not lapse until Malwa is done. After that-" Belisarius shrugged. "I do not know much, Justinian, of the struggle in the far distant future in which we find ourselves ensnared. But I have always known we were on the right side, because our enemies-those who call themselves the 'new G.o.ds'-seek human perfection. There is no such thing, and never will be." He rose from his chair.

"You know that as well as I. Do you really think that your new laws and your judgements will bring paradise on earth? An end to all injustice?"

Justinian grunted sarcastically.

"Why do it, then?" demanded Belisarius.

"Because it's worth doing," growled Justinian.

The general nodded. "G.o.d judges us by what we seek, not what we find."

Belisarius began to leave. Justinian called him back.

"One other thing, Belisarius. Speaking of visions." The former Emperor's face twisted into a half-smile. It was a skeptical sort of expression-almost sardonic.

"Have you had any further visions about your little protege in India? Is she making Malwa howl yet?"

Belisarius returned Justinian's smile with a shake of the head. "Shakuntala? I don't know-I've certainly had no visions! Aide is not a magician, Justinian. He is no more clairvoyant than you or I." The general smiled himself, now. There was nothing sardonic in that expression, though. And it was not in the least bit crooked. "I imagine she's doing splendidly. She's probably already got a little army collected around her, by now."

"Where is she?"

Belisarius shrugged. "The plan was for her to seek exile in south India. Her grandfather's the King of Kerala. Whether she's there or not, however, I don't know. I've received no word. That's the very reason Irene is accompanying Antonina to Egypt. She'll try to re-establish contact with Shakuntala and Rao through the Ethiopians."

"I can't say I'm happy about that, by the way," grumbled Justinian. "I didn't oppose the idea at the council, since you seemed so set upon it. But-Irene's a fiendishly capable spymaster. I'd be a lot happier if she were here at Theodora's side in the capital, keeping an eye on traitors."

Skeptically: "Do you really think this little rebellion you took so much time-and money-to foster is anything but wishful thinking?"

Belisarius studied the blind man for a moment, before replying. Justinian, for all his brilliance, was ill-equipped by temperament to gauge the power of a popular rebellion. The man thought like an emperor, still. Belisarius suspected that he always had, even when he was a peasant himself.

"I know the girl, Justinian. You don't. For all her youth, she has the potential to be a great ruler. And in Rao she has one of the finest generals in India."

"So?" grunted Justinian. "If the success of your rebellion hinges so completely on two people, the Malwa can take care of that with a couple of a.s.sa.s.sinations."

Belisarius laughed.

"a.s.sa.s.sinate Rao? He's the best a.s.sa.s.sin in India himself! G.o.d help the Malwa who tries to slip a knife into that man's back!" He shook his head. "As for Shakuntala-she's quite a proficient killer in her own right. Rao trained her, from the time she was seven. And she has the best bodyguards in the world. An elite Kushan unit, led by a man named Kungas."

The skepticism was still evident on the former emperor's face. Belisarius, watching, decided it was hopeless to shake Justinian's att.i.tude.

He was not there, as I was-to see Shakuntala win the allegiance of the very Kushans who had been a.s.signed by Malwa to be her captors. G.o.d, the sheer force in that girl's soul!

He turned away. Then, struck by a memory, turned back.

"Aide did give me a vision, once, while I was in India. That vision confirmed me in my determination to set Shakuntala free."

Justinian c.o.c.ked his head, listening.

"Many centuries from now, in the future-in a future, it might be better to say-all of Europe will be under the domination of one of history's greatest generals and conquerors. His name will be Napoleon. He will be defeated, in the end, brought down by his own overweening ambition. That defeat will be caused, as much as anything, by a great bleeding wound in Spain. He will conquer Spain, but never rule it. For years, his soldiers will die fighting the Spanish rebellion. The rebels will be aided by a nation which will arise on the island we call Britannia. The Peninsular War, those islanders will call it. And when Napoleon is finally brought down, they will look back upon that war and see in it one of the chief sources of their victory."

Still nothing. Skepticism.

Belisarius shrugged. Left.

Outside, in the corridor, Aide spoke in his mind.

Not a nice man, at all.

The facets flashed and spun into a new configuration. Like a kaleidoscope, the colors of Aide's emotion s.h.i.+fted. Sour distaste was replaced by a kind of wry humor.

Of course, the Duke of Wellington was not a nice man, either.

In the room, Justinian remained in his chair. He spent some time pondering the general's last words, but not much. He was far more interested in contemplating a different vision. Somewhere, in the midst of the horror which the jewel had shown him, Justinian had caught a glimpse of something which gave him hope.

A statue, he had seen. Carved by a sculptor of the figure, to depict justice.

The figure had been blind.

"In the future," murmured the former emperor, "when men wish to praise the quality of justice, they will say that justice is blind."

The man who had once been perhaps the most capable emperor in the long history of the Roman Empire-and certainly its most intelligent-rubbed his empty eye-sockets. For the first time since his mutilation, the gesture was not simply one of despair and bitterness.

Justinian the Great. So, more than anything, had he wanted to be known for posterity.

Perhaps . . .

Theodora, at Belisarius' urging, had created a position specifically tailored for Justinian. He was now the empire's Grand Justiciar. For the first time in centuries, the law of Rome would be codified, interpreted and enforced by the best man for the task. Whatever had been his faults as an Emperor, there was no one who doubted that Justinian's was the finest legal mind in the empire.

Perhaps . . .

There had been Solomon and Solon, after all, and Hammurabi before them.

So why not add the name Justinian to that list?

It was a shorter list, now that he thought about, than the list of great emperors. Much shorter.

Chapter 5.

MUZIRIS.

Spring, 531 a.d.

"Any minute now," whispered the a.s.sa.s.sin at the window. "I can see the first contingents of her cavalrymen coming around the corner."

The leader of the Malwa a.s.sa.s.sination team came to the window. The lookout stepped aside. Carefully, using only one fingertip, the leader drew the curtain aside a couple of inches. He peered down onto the street below.

"Yes," he murmured. He turned and made a gesturing motion with his right hand. The other two a.s.sa.s.sins in the room came forward, carrying the bombard between them. They moved slowly and laboriously. The bombard was two feet long and measured eight inches across. It was made of wrought iron bars, square in cross section and an inch thick. The bars were welded together to form a rough barrel about six inches in diameter, which was then further strengthened with four iron hoops. A thick plate was welded to the back of the bars. The bombard was bolted down to a wooden base-teak, reinforced with bra.s.s strips-measuring three feet by two feet. The two men strained under the effort of carrying the device.

Part of their careful progress, however, was due to the obstacles in their way. The room was littered with the squalid debris of a poor family's cramped apartment.

As they came forward, they maneuvered around the bodies of the family who had once lived there. A man, his wife, her mother, and their four children. After killing the family, the a.s.sa.s.sins had piled the corpses in a corner. But the room was so small that the seven bodies still took up a full quarter of the floor s.p.a.ce. Most of the floor was covered with blood, dried now, but still sticky. A swarm of flies covered the corpses and the bloodstains.

One of the a.s.sa.s.sins wrinkled his nose.

"They're already starting to stink," he muttered. "d.a.m.n southwest India and its f.u.c.king tropical climate-and we're in the hot season. We should have kept them alive until-"

"Shut up," hissed the leader. "What were we going to do? Guard them for almost a full day? The baby would have begun squawling, anyway."

His subordinate lapsed into sullen silence. A few seconds later, he and his companion levered the bombard onto the hastily-improvised firing platform which the a.s.sa.s.sination squad had erected that morning. It was a rickety contraption-simply a mounded up pile of the pallets and two wicker chairs which had been the murdered family's only furniture. But it would suffice. The bombard was not a full-size cannon. It would fire only one round, a sack full of drop shot. The recoil would send the bombard hurtling into the far wall, out of action.

That would be good enough. When she pa.s.sed through the street below the window of the apartment, the Empress-in-exile of Andhra would be not more than twenty yards distant. There was nowhere for her to escape, either, even if the alarm was given at the last moment. The narrow street was hemmed in, on both sides, by mud-brick tenement buildings identical to the one in which the a.s.sa.s.sins lay waiting. At that point blank range, the cannister would sweep a large swath of the street clean of life.

"Here she comes," whispered the lookout. He was peering through a second window, now. Like his leader, he had drawn the curtain aside no more than an inch or two.

"Are you certain it is she?" demanded the leader. The lookout had been a.s.signed to the squad because he was one of the few Malwa a.s.sa.s.sins who had personally seen the rebel Empress after her capture at the siege of Amaravati. The girl had aged, of course, since then. But not so much that the lookout wouldn't recognize her.

"It must be Shakuntala," he replied. "I can't see her face, because she's wearing a veil. But she's small-dark-skinned-wearing imperial regalia. Who else would it be?"

The leader scowled. He would have preferred a more positive identification, but- He hissed an unspoken command to the other two a.s.sa.s.sins in the room. The command was unnecessary. They were already loading the gunpowder and the cannister round into the bombard. The leader scampered back and sighted along its length. He could only estimate the angle, since the curtain hanging in the window obscured his view of the street below. But the estimate would be good enough. It was not a weapon of finesse and pinpoint accuracy.

The leader made a last inspection of the cannon. He could not restrain a grimace. The blast and the recoil, confined in that small room, was almost certain to cause some injuries to the a.s.sa.s.sins themselves. Hopefully, those injuries would not disable any of them-not enough, at least, to prevent them making their escape in the chaos and confusion after Shakuntala and her immediate entourage were slaughtered.

"I wish they'd perfected those new impact fuses they've been working on," muttered one of the a.s.sa.s.sins. "Then we could have used a real cannon at long range. This misbegotten-"

"Why not wish she didn't have thousands of Maratha cavalrymen to protect her, while you're at it?" snarled the leader. "And those f.u.c.king Kushan cutthroats? Then we could have just slid a knife into her ribs instead of-"

"She's fifty yards away," hissed the lookout. "The first cavalry escorts are already pa.s.sing below."

He plastered himself against the wall, crouching down as far as he could while still being able to peek through the window. The expression on his face, beneath the professional calm, was grim. He was almost certain to be scorched by the exhaust from the cannon blast. And there was also the possibility that a weak weld could result in the cannon blowing up when it was fired.

"Forty yards."

One of the two bombard handlers retreated to a far corner, curling into a ball. The other drew out a lighting device and ignited the slow match. After handing it to the squad leader, he hurried to join his comrade in the corner. The leader crouched next to the bombard's firehole, ready to set off the charge.

"Thirty-five yards," announced the lookout by the window. "Get ready."

The men in the room took a deep breath. They had already decided to fire the bombard when the Empress was twenty-five yards distant. They knew that Shakuntala's horse would travel less than five yards in the time it took for the slow match to ignite the charge. If all went as planned, the sack full of lead pellets would turn the ruler-in-exile of conquered Andhra into so much mincemeat.

The leader held up the slow match. Brought it close to the firehole.

"Thirty yards."

The door behind them erupted like a volcano. The first man coming through the door cut the squad leader aside before the a.s.sa.s.sin had time to do more than flinch. It was a brutal sword strike-not fatal, simply enough to hurl the man away from the cannon. Quick, quick. The a.s.sa.s.sin screeched with pain. His right arm dangled loose, half-severed at the elbow. The slow match fell harmlessly to the floor, hissing in a patch of blood.