"Cretins! Idiots! Morons—absolute morons—the whole lot! You want me to end a small civil war by starting a big one? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
They shrank from her hot eyes. Antonina turned in her saddle and transferred the glare back to Menander.
"You! Maybe you're not too old to have lost all your wits! Maybe. How would you handle it?"
For a moment, Menander was too stunned to speak. Then, clearing his throat, he said, "Well. Well. Actually, while you were talking I was thinking about how the general—Belisarius, I mean—handled the situation with the Kushans. The second situation with the Kushans, I mean—not the first one where he tricked Venandakatra out of using them as guards—but the other one, where he—well, they were guarding us but didn't know the Empress—Shakuntala, I mean, not Theodora—was hidden in—well."
He stopped, floundering. Drew a deep, shaky breath.
"What I mean is, I was struck by it at the time. How the general used honey instead of vinegar."
Antonina sighed. Relaxed, a bit.
"You're promoted," she growled. "Tribune Men-ander, you are."
The eyes which she now turned on her assembled officers were no longer hot.
Oh, but they were very, very cold.
"Here—is—what—you—will—do. You will find the wives and daughters—and the sons and fathers and mothers and brothers and for that matter the second cousins twice-removed—of those soldiers forted up in that place."
Deep breath. Icy cold eyes.
"More precisely, you and your cataphracts will escort the Knights Hospitaler while they do the actual finding. You and your soldiers will stand there looking as sweet and polite as altar boys—or I'll have your guts for breakfast—while the Knights Hospitaler convince the soldiers' families that a potentially disastrous situation for their husbands and fathers and sons and brothers—and for that matter third cousins three times removed—would be resolved if the families would come back to their homes and reopen the shops. And—most important—would cook some meals."
"Cook meals?" choked Hermogenes.
A wintry smile.
"Yes. Meals. Big meals, like the ones I remember from my days here. Spicy meals. The kind of meals you can smell a mile away."
She gazed at the fortress, still smiling.
"Let the soldiers smell those meals, while they're chewing on their garrison biscuits. Let them think about their warm beds—with their wives in them—while they sleep on the battlements in full armor. Let them think about their little shops and their father-in-laws' promises that they'll inherit the business, while Ambrose gives speeches."
"They'll never agree to it," squeaked Ashot. "Their wives and daughters, I mean. And their families."
He squared his shoulders, faced Antonina bravely. "They won't come back. Not with us here. Hell, I wouldn't, come down to it."
An arctic smile. "That I can believe. Which is why you won't be here. Not you, not your cataphracts. Not Hermogenes, nor his infantry regulars. I'll be here, as a guarantee. Their own hostage, if they want to think of it that way."
"What?" demanded Hermogenes. "Alone?"
Suddenly, Antonina's usual warm smile returned. "Alone? Of course not! What a silly idea. My grenadiers will stay here with me. Along with their wives, and their children."
All the officers now stared at Euphronius. The young Syrian met that gaze with his own squared shoulders. And then, with a grin.
"Great idea. Nobody'll worry about us raping anybody." A shudder. "God, my wife'd kill me!"
Ashot turned back to Antonina. The short, muscular Armenian was practically gobbling.
"What if Ambrose sallies?" he demanded. "Do you think your grenadiers—alone—can stand up to him?"
Antonina never wavered. "As a matter of fact—yes. Here, at least."
She pointed down the thoroughfare to the fortress. "We're not on an open field of battle, Ashot. There's only two ways Ambrose can come at me. He can send his men through all the little crooked side streets—and I will absolutely match my grenadiers against him in that terrain—"
All the officers were shaking their heads. No cataphract in his right mind would even think of driving armored horses through that rabbit warren.
"—or, he can come at me with a massed lance charge down that boulevard. Which is what he'll do, if he does anything. Down that beautiful boulevard—which is just wide enough to tempt a horseman, but not wide enough to maneuver."
She bestowed a very benign, approving smile upon the boulevard in question.
"And yes, on that terrain, my grenadiers will turn him into sausage."
She drew herself up in the saddle, sitting as tall as she could. Which was not much, of course.
"Do as I say."
Her officers hastened to obey, then, with no further protest.
Possibly, that was due to the iron command in her voice.
But possibly—just possibly—it was because when she drew herself up in the saddle the blazing sun of Egypt reflected off her cuirass at such an angle as to momentarily blind her generals. And make a short woman seem like a giantess.
By noon of the next day, the first families began trickling back into Nicopolis. Antonina was there to greet them, from the pavilion she had set up in the very middle of the boulevard.
The first arrivals approached her timidly. But, finding that the legendary Antonina—she of the Cleaver—was, in person, a most charming and sweet-tempered lady, they soon began to relax.
By nightfall, hundreds had returned, and were slowly beginning to mingle with the grenadiers. All of the Syrians could speak Greek now, even if many of them still spoke it badly. So they were able to communicate with the soldiers' families. Coptic was the native language of most of those folk, but, as was universally the case in Alexandria, they were fluent in Greek as well.
By morning of the day after, the soldiers' families were quite at ease with the grenadiers. True, the men were a bit scary, what with their bizarre and much-rumored new weapons. But their wives were a familiar thing, even if they were foreign Syrians, as were their children. And it is difficult—impossible, really—to be petrified by a man who is playing with his child, or being nagged by his wife.
By the end of that second day, half of Nicopolis' residents had returned. Antonina's presence and assurances, combined with worry over their businesses and properties, proved irresistable.
On the morning of the following day, Antonina called for a feast. At her own expense, foodstuffs were purchased from all over the city. The great thoroughfare—not three hundred yards from the fortress—was turned into an impromptu, gigantic, daylong picnic.
As the picnic progressed, some of the wives of the garrison soldiers began to approach the fortress. Calling up to their husbands.
The first negotiations began, in a matter of speaking. Soldiers on the battlements began lowering baskets tied to ropes. Foodstuffs went up, to relieve the tedium of garrison biscuits. With those delicious parcels went wifely words, shouted from below. Scolding words, in some cases. Pleading words, in others. Downright salacious promises, in not a few.
Watching from her pavilion, Antonina counted every basket as a cannonball struck. Every wifely word, as a sapper's mine laid.
She leaned back easily in her couch, surrounded by the small horde of Nicopolis' housewives who had adopted her as their new patron saint, and savored the moment.