But-where protest would be futile, irony would be at least entertaining. Belisarius frowned, deep in thought, and allowed his jaw to gape with wonder.
"Such a brilliant stratagem! To conclude a siege by simply decreeing it at an end! I confess with shame that I never thought of it myself, despite the many sieges I have undertaken."
Sanga barked harsh laughter. "Neither have I!" he exclaimed. The Rajput's foul humor seemed to vanish. He reined his horse around, and began moving away. "Come, Belisarius," he said over his shoulder, cheerfully. "Let us observe a military genius at work."
Their route took them toward the eastern side of the rebel city. Before long, it became apparent to Belisarius that the Romans were going to get closer to Ranapur than they ever had been before. With some difficulty, the general managed to maintain an air of casual interest. He was pleased to note, however, from a glance over his shoulder, that his cataphracts were closely scrutinizing the scene. Menander was muttering softly, a habit which the young soldier had whenever he was determined to commit something to memory.
Soon, from a distance, Belisarius was able to discern an enormous pavilion on a small slope directly east of the city. The pavilion was located just barely out of catapult range. Apparently, Emperor Skandagupta intended to witness the fall of Ranapur as closely as possible.
Belisarius had never been able to observe the siege on this side of the city. Always, he had been restricted to the southern wall. But he had long suspected, from the sound of the cannonades, that it was on the east that the Malwa had brought their greatest strength to bear. As they drew nearer, it became obvious that his supposition was accurate. The great brick wall surrounding Ranapur was nothing but a shattered mound, here. The cannonades had reduced it to a ridge of rubble.
A huge army was assembling on the plain before that ridge of shattered brickwork, preparing for the final assault. Regular Malwa infantry, in the main, with Ye-tai shock troops to stiffen their resolve. The Ye-tai detachments were assembled in the rear of the regular infantry. Their job, obviously, was not to lead the charge, but to see to it that the common soldiers did not falter in their duty.
There were very few Rajputs anywhere to be seen. Belisarius began to make some remark to that effect, but Sanga interrupted him brusquely.
"We have been assigned other duties. All Rajput cavalrymen, except your escort and a few couriers, have been charged with the task of patrolling the outskirts of the city. To capture any rebels attempting to escape their doom."
"Ah," said Belisarius. A quick glance at Sanga's dark, tight-lipped face, then: "A brilliant maneuver, that-to use your best troops to mop up after a great victory which hasn't actually been won yet. Although, of course, the victory has been decreed." He scratched his chin. "I am ashamed to admit that I myself, military simpleton that I am, have always been prone to using my best troops in the battle itself."
Again, Sanga barked a few laughs. "I, too! Ah, Belisarius, we are but children at the feet of a master." He shook his head. "Truly, Lord Harsha's name belongs in the company of such as Alexander the Great and Ashoka."
"Truly," agreed Belisarius. The Roman general scanned the battleground. To his experienced eye, it was obvious that the Malwa had long been preparing for this massive assault on the eastern wall of the city.
"I see that Lord Harsha places no great store in surprise and deception," he commented.
Sanga's lips curled. "Such methods are beneath Lord Harsha's contempt," he replied acidly. "The tactics of bandits, he has been heard to call them."
For a moment, the Roman and Rajput generals stared at each other. Both smiled, then, faintly but quite warmly, before Sanga sighed and looked away.
"But, then, he is a very great man and does not care to stoop," the Rajput murmured. A shrug. "And, with the enormous force at his disposal, he does not perhaps need to."
They were now but two hundred yards from the Malwa emperor's gigantic pavilion. Skandagupta's camp headquarters, to Belisarius, seemed like something out of fable. He had never seen its like before, on a field of battle. Not even the haughtiest Persian emperor-not even the ancient Xerxes or Darius-had ever brought such an incredible structure to the clash of armies.
The pavilion rose a full sixty feet in the air, suspended on ten enormous poles-upended logs, rather. A multitude of inch-thick hawsers, stretching tightly in every direction, anchored the poles to the ground. The fabric of the tent itself was cotton-not even the ruler of Malwa could afford that much silk-but all of the many canopies which provided entry into the pavilion were made of silk, as were their tassels and cords. And the cotton of the tent was marvelously dyed, not in simple swaths and colors, but in complex geometric designs and subtle shades.
A small squad of Ye-tai began to approach them on horseback. From their gaudy uniforms and the red and gold pennants trailing their lances, Belisarius recognized them as members of the Emperor's personal bodyguard. Eight thousand strong, that bodyguard was reputed to be-although, from his quick assessment, Belisarius did not think there were more than half that many present on the scene.
At that moment, drums began sounding the signal for the advance. The front line of Malwa infantrymen began a slow, undulating movement. The advance was ragged, not so much due to indiscipline as to the simple fact that the ground was so chewed up by trenches and artillery fire that it was impossible for the Malwa soldiers to maintain an even line. The enormous mass of the army added to the confusion. Belisarius estimated that there were perhaps as many as forty thousand infantrymen in that slow-moving charge, with an additional five thousand Ye-tai barbarians bringing up the rear.
About three-fourths of the Malwa soldiers stumbling across that terrain were armed with traditional hand weapons. Most of the infantrymen favored spears and swords, although some were armed with battle-axes and maces.
Belisarius knew from his prior observations that these weapons would be cheap and poorly made, as would be their armor. The Ye-tai who chivvied those Malwa common troops were equipped with mail tunics and conical iron helmets. But the infantrymen themselves were forced to make do with leather half-armor reinforced with scale mail on the shoulders. Their helmets were not much more than leather caps, although the scale mail reinforcement was a bit less frugal than with their armor. The difference in shields was also striking. The Ye-tai shields, like Roman shields, were sturdy laminated wood reinforced with iron rims and bosses. The shields of the common Malwa troops, on the other hand, were almost pitifuclass="underline" wicker frames, covered with simple leather.
Outside of the mass of troops carrying traditional weapons, however, Belisarius noted that the remainder were divided evenly between soldiers carrying ladders and scaling equipment, and grenadiers armed with a handful of the pestle-shaped Malwa grenades. This would be the Romans' first opportunity to observe grenades in action, and Belisarius was determined to make the most of the opportunity.
Belisarius and Rana Sanga stopped to watch the advance. Out of the corner of his eye, Belisarius saw that the oncoming Ye-tai patrol had stopped also. But he paid them little attention, for his interest was riveted on the battleground. He was struck again by the well-worn and oft-trampled nature of the terrain. Obviously, the siege here had been long, arduous, and filled with no surprises. It was exactly the kind of siege terrain that offended his craftsman's instincts, and he found his mind toying with the alternate methods that he would have tried had he been in charge of the siege.
Or of the forces defending the city.
A thought came to him then, a half-formed idea born of old experience and newly-acquired knowledge. He turned to Sanga.