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Did he regret the life which had brought him to this place? Savor it?
Most likely both, she concluded. And was then amused, when she realized how astonished Pulinda would have been had he realized that the woman with whom he was quarreling over terms was actually awash in good feeling toward him.
Perhaps, in some unknown way, he sensed that warmth. In any event, the negotiations came to an end sooner than A
Or, perhaps, it was simply that magic name of Calopodius again, clearing the waters before her. Pulinda's last words to her were: "Mention me to your husband, if you would."
By midafternoon, she had tracked down the tailor reputed to be the best in Barbaricum. By sundown, she had completed her business with him. Most of that time had been spent keeping the dockboys from fidgeting as the tailor measured them.
"You also!" A
The next day, however, when they do
The Isaurian brothers and Abdul were not quite as demonstrative. Not quite.
"We look like princes," gurgled Cottomenes happily.
"And so you are," pronounced A
The Iron Triangle
"Relax, Calopodius," said Menander cheerfully, giving the blind young officer a friendly pat on the shoulder. "I'll see to it she arrives safely."
"She's already left Barbaricum," muttered Calopodius. "Damnation, why didn't she wait?"
Despite his agitation, Calopodius couldn't help smiling when he heard the little round of laughter which echoed around him. As usual, whenever the subject of Calopodius' wife arose, every officer and orderly in the command bunker had listened. In her own way, A
Most husbands, to say the least, do not like to discover that their wives are the subject of endless army gossip. But since, in this case, the cause of the gossip was not the usual sexual peccadilloes, Calopodius was not certain how he felt about it. Some part of him, ingrained with custom, still felt a certain dull outrage. But, for the most part-perhaps oddly-his main reaction was one of quiet pride.
"I suppose that's a ridiculous question," he admitted ruefully. "She hasn't waited for anything else."
When Menander spoke again, the tone in his voice was much less jovial. As if he, too, shared in the concern which-much to his surprise-Calopodius had found engulfing him since he learned of A
But… Even before his blinding, the world of literature had often seemed as real to Calopodius as any other. Since he lost his sight, all the more so-despite the fact that he could no longer read or write himself, but depended on others to do it for him.
A
Had he not, after all, written about her often enough in his own Dispatches? In the third person, of course, as he always spoke of himself in his writings. No subjective mood was ever inserted into his Dispatches, any more than into the chapters of his massive History of the War. But, detached or not, whenever he received news of A
She's different.
"Difference," however, was no shield against life's misfortunes-misfortunes which are multiplied several times over in the middle of a war zone. So, within seconds, Calopodius was back to fretting.
"Why didn't she wait, damn it all?"
Again, Menander clapped his shoulder. "I'm leaving with the Victrix this afternoon, Calopodius. Steaming with the riverflow, I'll be in Sukkur long before A
"The Sind's not that safe," grumbled Calopodius, still fretting. The Sind was the lower half of the Indus river valley, and while it had now been cleared of Malwa troops and was under the jurisdiction of Rome's Persian allies, the province was still greatly unsettled. "Dacoits everywhere."
"Dacoits aren't going to attack a military convoy," interrupted Belisarius. "I'll make sure she gets a Persian escort of some kind as far as Sukkur."
One of the telegraphs in the command center began to chatter. When the message was read aloud, a short time later, even Calopodius began to relax.
"Guess not," he mumbled-more than a little abashed. "With that escort."
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Chapter 14
The Lower Indus
Spring, 534 A.D.
"I don't believe this," mumbled Illus-more than a little abashed. He glanced down at his uniform. For all the finery of the fabric and the cut, the garment seemed utterly drab matched against the glittering costumes which seemed to fill the wharf against which their river barge was just now being tied.
Standing next to him, A
The tying-up was finished and the gangplank laid. A
She was not even surprised. A
What am I doing here? she wondered. I never pla
"So! You are the one!" were the first words he boomed. "To live in such days, when legends walk among us!"
In the confused time which followed, as A
They seemed meaningless to her. Khusrau Anushirvan-"Khusrau of the Immortal Soul"-was a legend, not she.
So why had he said that?
By the end of that evening, after spending hours sitting stiffly in a chair while Iran's royalty and nobility wined and dined her, she had mustered enough courage to lean over to the emperor-sitting next to her!-and whisper the question into his ear.
Khusrau's response astonished her even more. He gri