During the winter monsoon season, which began in November, it was impossible for sailing craft to make it to Barbaricum. Taking advantage of the relatively sheltered waters of the Gulf, on the other hand, they could make it as far as Chabahari-which was the reason the Roman forces in India had been working so hard to get a telegraph line connecting Chabahari and the Indus.
So if she could get as far as Chabahari… She'd still have to wait, but if Calopodius' permission came she wouldn't be wasting weeks here in Mesopotamia.
"Allow me to go as far as Chabahari then," she insisted.
Dryopus started to frown. Anna had to fight to keep from screaming in frustration.
"Put me under guard, if you will!"
Dryopus sighed, lowered his head, and ran his fingers through thinning hair. "He's not likely to agree, you know," he said softly.
"He's my husband, not yours," pointed out Anna. "You don't know how he thinks." She didn't see any reason to add: no more than I do.
His head still lowered, Dryopus chuckled. "True enough. With that young man, it's always hard to tell."
He raised his head and studied her carefully. "Are you that besotted with him? That you insist on going into the jaws of the greatest war in history?"
"He's my husband," she replied, not knowing what else to say.
Again, he chuckled. "You remind me of Antonina, a bit. Or Irene."
Anna was confused for a moment, until she realized he was referring to Belisarius' wife and the Roman Empire's former head of espionage, Irene Macrembolitissa. Famous women, now, the both of them. One of them had even become a queen herself.
"I don't know either one," she said quietly. Which was true enough, even though she'd read everything ever written by Macrembolitissa. "So I couldn't say."
Dryopus studied her a bit longer. Then his eyes moved to her bodyguards, who had been standing as far back in a corner as possible.
"You heard?"
Illus nodded.
"Can I trust you?" he asked.
Illus' shoulders heaved a bit, as if he were suppressing a laugh. "No offense, sir-but if it's worth your career, just imagine the price we'd pay." His tone grew serious: "We'll see to it that she doesn't, ah, escape on her own."
Dryopus nodded and looked back at Anna. "All right, then. As far as Chabahari."
On their way to the inn where Anna had secured lodgings, Illus shook his head. "If Calopodius says 'no,' you realize you'll have wasted a lot of time and money."
"He's my husband," replied Anna firmly. Not knowing what else to say.
The Iron Triangle
After the general finished reading Anna's message, and the accompanying one from Dryopus, he invited Calopodius to sit down at the table in the command bunker.
"I knew you were married," said Belisarius, "but I know none of the personal details. So tell me."
Calopodius hesitated. He was deeply reluctant to involve the general in the petty minutiae of his own life. In the little silence that fell over them, within the bunker, Calopodius could hear the artillery barrages. As was true day and night, and had been for many weeks, the Malwa besiegers of the Iron Triangle were shelling the Roman fortifications-and the Roman gunners were responding with counter-battery fire. The fate of the world would be decided here in the Punjab, Calopodius thought, some time over the next year or so. That, and the whole future of the human race. It seemed absurd-grotesque, even-to waste the Roman commander's time…
"Tell me," repeated Belisarius. For all their softness, Calopodius could easily detect the tone of command in the words.
Still, he hesitated.
Belisarius chuckled. "Be at ease, young man. I can spare the time for this. In truth-" Calopodius could sense, if not see, the little gesture by which the general expressed a certain ironic weariness. "I would enjoy it, Calopodius. War is a means, not an end. It would do my soul good to talk about ends, for a change."
That was enough to break Calopodius' resistance.
"I really don't know her very well, sir. We'd only been married for a short time before I left to join your army. It was-"
He fumbled for the words. Belisarius provided them.
"A marriage of convenience. Your wife's from the Melisseni family."
Calopodius nodded. With his acute hearing, he could detect the slight sound of the general scratching his chin, as he was prone to do when thinking.
"An illustrious family," stated Belisarius. "One of the handful of senatorial families which can actually claim an ancient pedigree without paying scribes to fiddle with the historical records. But a family which has fallen on hard times financially."
"My father said they wouldn't even have a pot to piss in if their creditors ever really descended on them." Calopodius sighed. "Yes, General. An illustrious family, but now short of means. Whereas my family, as you know…"
"The Saronites. Immensely wealthy, but with a pedigree that needs a lot of fiddling."
Calopodius grinned. "Go back not more than three generations, and you're looking at nothing but commoners. Not in the official records, of course. My father can afford a lot of scribes."
"That explains your incredible education," mused Belisarius. "I had wondered, a bit. Not many young noblemen have your command of language and the arts."
Calopodius heard the scrape of a chair as the general stood up. Then, heard him begin to pace about. That was another of Belisarius' habits when he was deep in thought. Calopodius had heard him do it many times, over the past weeks. But he was a bit astonished that the general was giving the same attention to this problem as he would to a matter of strategy or tactics.
"Makes sense, though," continued Belisarius. "For all the surface glitter-and don't think the Persians don't make plenty of sarcastic remarks about it-the Roman aristocracy will overlook a low pedigree as long as the 'nobleman' is wealthy and well educated. Especially-as you are-in grammar and rhetoric."
"I can drop three Homeric and biblical allusions into any sentence," chuckled Calopodius.
"I've noticed!" laughed the general. "That official history you're writing of my campaigns would serve as a Homeric and biblical commentary as well." He paused a moment. "Yet I notice that you don't do it in your Dispatches to the Army. "
"It'd be a waste," said Calopodius, shrugging. "Worse than that, really. I write those for the morale of the soldiers, most of whom would just find the allusions confusing. Besides, those are really your dispatches, not mine. And you don't talk that way, certainly not to your soldiers."
"They're not my dispatches, young man. They're yours. I approve them, true, but you write them. And when they're read aloud by my son to the Senate, Photius presents them as Calopodius' dispatches, not mine."
Calopodius was startled into silence.
"You didn't know? My son is eleven years old, and quite literate. And since he is the Emperor of Rome, even if Theodora still wields the actual power, he insists on reading them to the Senate. He's very fond of your dispatches. Told me in his most recent letter that they're the only things he reads which don't bore him to tears. His tutors, of course, don't approve."