Kurush grinned. "If you want Persian artisans, Belisarius, you have to go to Mesopotamia or Persarmenia for them. Except in Fars province. There are some metalsmiths-armorers, mostly-in Persepolis and Pasargadae."
He cocked his head quizzically. "Why do you ask?"
Belisarius walked over to the table and stared down at the map, scratching his chin. "I ask because the gunpowder weapons Damodara's army is using are quite a bit more sophisticated than anything I expected them to have." He gestured with his head toward the east. The sound of the Malwa barrages carried clearly through the leather walls of the tent.
Still scratching his chin, he added: "I thought it might be possible that Damodara established a manufacturing center somewhere in Hyrcania or Khorasan. But that's not likely, if there are no native craftsmen to draw on. I doubt he would have brought an entire labor force with him all the way from the Gangetic plain. A few experts, maybe. But not the hundreds of skilled workers it would take to manufacture-"
Again, he gestured toward the east wall of the tent. Again, the sound of Malwa rocketry and cannon fire pierced the leather.
A new voice entered the discussion. "Itis possible, General Belisarius. He could have set one up at Marv." Vasudeva rose from a chair in a corner of the tent and ambled toward the table. "Marv is a big enough town, and it's well located for the purpose."
Vasudeva reached the table and leaned over, pointing to Marv's location on the map. His finger then moved east to the river Oxus, and then, following the river's course, southeast to a spot on the map which bore no markings.
"Right about there is the city of Begram," said the Kushan general. "The largest Kushan city, after Peshawar. Our kings, in the old days, had their summer palaces at Begram." A bitter tinge entered his voice. "Peshawar is nothing but ruins, today. But Begram still stands. The Ye-tai did not destroy it, except for the stupas."
For all the calm in Vasudeva's voice, Belisarius did not miss the underlying anger-even hatred. When the Ye-tai conquered the Kushan kingdom, a century earlier, they had singled out Buddhism for particularly savage repression. All the monks had been murdered, and the stupas razed to the ground. Like most Kushans Belisarius knew, Vasudeva still considered himself a Buddhist. But it was a faith he practiced in fumbling secret, with no monks or learned scrolls to guide him.
Vasudeva's finger retraced the route he had indicated a few seconds earlier. "As you can see, travel from Begram to Marv is not difficult. Most of it can be done by river craft."
"And what's in Begram?" asked Kurush.
Vasudeva smiled thinly. "Kushans. What else?" The smile faded. " More precisely, Kushancraftsmen. Even in the old days, Begram was the center of artisanship in the Kushan realm. Peshawar was bigger, but it was the royal city. Full of soldiers, courtiers, that sort of thing." With a chuckle, as dry as the smile: "And a horde of bureaucrats, of course."
Vasudeva fingered his wispy goatee. "If Damodara had the good sense-if, General Belisarius; the Malwa, as a rule, don't think of Kushans as anything other than vassal soldiers-he could have easily transplanted hundreds of Kushan craftsmen to Marv. There, he could have built up an armament center. Close enough, as you can see from the map, to supply his army once it passed the Caspian Gates. But far enough away, in a sheltered oasis, to keep it safe from Persian raiders."
He's right! said Aide to Belisarius.Marv would be perfect. The Seleucids walled the city eight hundred years ago. The whole oasis, actually. The Sassanids made it a provincial capital and a military center after they conquered the western part of the Kushan Empire. And Marv will become-would have become-the capital of Khorasan province after the Islamic conquest.
The Persian officers were staring at Vasudeva as if he were babbling in an unknown tongue. One of them turned his head and muttered to another: "I'venever thought of Kushans as anything but soldiers."
Vasudeva heard the remark. His smile returned. It was avery thin smile.
"Nobody does," he said. "The fact remains that Kushans have been skilled artisans for centuries. Appearances to the contrary, we aren't barbarian nomads." He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. " My father was a very good jeweler. I wanted to follow in his footsteps. But the Malwa had other plans for me."
Belisarius felt a sudden rush of empathy for the stocky Kushan mercenary. He, as a boy, had wanted to be a blacksmith rather than a soldier. Until the demands of his class, and Rome, decreed otherwise.
"Damodara is smart enough," he mused. He leaned back from the table. "More than smart enough."
Belisarius began slowly pacing around. His softly spoken words were those of a man thinking aloud. "Ifhe had good enough intelligence, that is. The Malwa spymaster, Nanda Lal, is a capable man-very capable-but I never got the sense, in the many days I spent in his company, that he thought much about manufacturing and artisanry. His orientation seemed entirely political and military. So where would Damodara have learned-?"
Narses!
"Narses," snarled Maurice. "He's got that stinking traitor working for him."
Belisarius stopped his pacing and stared at the Thracian chiliarch. His own eyes held nothing of Maurice's angry glare. They were simply calm. Calm, and thoughtful.
"That's possible," he said, after a few seconds. "I've never spotted him, through the telescope. But if he's with Damodara's army, Narses would be sure to stay out of sight."
Belisarius scratched his chin. "Possible, possible," he mused. " Narses was an expert on central Asia." He gave Kurush a half-rueful, half-apologetic glance. "We always let him handle that side of our affairs with the Aryans. He was-well, I've got to be honest:superbwhen it came to bribing and maneuvering barbarians into harassing Persia's eastern provinces."
For a moment, Kurush began to glower. But, within a couple of seconds, the glower turned into a little laugh.
"I know!" he exclaimed. "The grief that man caused us! It wasn't just barbarians, either. He was also a master at keeping those damned eastern noblemen stirred up against imperial authority."
Kurush took four quick strides to the entrance. He stared out and up, toward the crest of the pass. To all appearance, he was listening to the sound of the Malwa barrage. But Belisarius knew that the man's thoughts were really directed elsewhere, both in time and space.
Kurush turned his head. "Assuming that you're right, Belisarius, what's the significance of it?"
"The significance, Kurush, is that it means this Malwa army is even more dangerous that we thought." The Roman general moved toward the entrance, stopping a few feet behind Kurush. "What it means is thatthis army could ravage Mesopotamia on its own, regardless of what happens to the main Malwa army in the delta."
Startled, Kurush spun around.
"They're not big enough!" he exclaimed. "If Emperor Khusrau wasn't tied up keeping the Malwa in Charax-" He stumbled to a halt; then, glumly: "And if we didn't have the traitor Ormazd to deal with in upper Mesopotamia-" His words trailed off again. Stubbornly, Kurush shook his head.
"They're still not big enough," he insisted.
"Theyare, Kurush," countered Belisarius. "Ifthey have their own armament center-and I'm now convinced they do-then they are more than big enough."
He stepped up to the entrance, standing right next to Kurush. His next words the general pitched very low, so that only the Persian nobleman could hear.
"That's as good an army as any in the world, sahrdaran. Trust me. I've been fighting them for weeks, now." He hesitated, knowing Kurush' s touchy Aryan pride, but pushed on. "And they've defeated every Persian army that was sent against them."
Kurush tightened his jaws. But, touchy or not, the Persian was also honest. He nodded his head curtly.
Belisarius continued. "I thought they'd be limited by the fact that Emperor Skandagupta sent Damodara and Sanga into eastern Persia with very little in the way of gunpowder weapons. But if that'snot true-if they've created their own weapons industry along the way-then we are looking at a very different kind of animal. A tiger instead of a leopard."